Wednesday, April 15, 2009

outré \oo-TRAY\, adjective:

• Unconventional; eccentric; bizarre.

Outré comes from French, from the past participle of outer, "to exaggerate, to go beyond," from Latin ultra, "beyond."

ghetto upgrade

• When you are flying economy on a near empty flight and can lay across an entire row of seats.

I got a ghetto upgrade on my flight to Bangkok and was able to sleep most of the way.

Trivia

Peter Benchley’s 1974 blockbuster novel Jaws was about a man-eating great white shark. What killer creature created havoc in his 1991 novel Beast?

• A 100-foot-long giant squid.

Today in History:

• Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet: opened the first free American school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut (1817)
• Titanic: the "unsinkable" luxury liner sank after hitting an iceberg; over 1,500 died (1912)
• McDonald's: Ray Kroc opened the store that launched the empire (1955)
• Botox: botulinum toxin was approved by the FDA for treatment of moderate-to-severe frown lines (2002)

Today's Birthdays:

• Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519): Italian Renaissance man who painted the Mona Lisa
• Henry James (1843-1916): author of Daisy Miller and The Bostonians
• Bessie Smith (1894-1937): blues and jazz singer; musicians Roy Clark (76), Dave Edmunds (65) and Ed O'Brien (41) share this birth date
• Heloise (58): household tips columnist, "Hints from Heloise"
• Emma Thompson (50): Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress and screenwriter, Sense and Sensibility, Last Chance Harvey; also, actors Michael Ansara (87), Lois Chiles (62), Amy Wright (59), Danny Pino (35), Seth Rogen (27) and Emma Watson (19)
• Samantha Fox (43), singer, Page 3 girl, monster jugs.