Saturday, July 18, 2009

adumbrate \AD-uhm-brayt; uh-DUHM-\, transitive verb:

1. To produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch.
2. To prefigure indistinctly; foreshadow.
3. To suggest, indicate, or disclose partially.
4. To cast a shadow over; to shade; to obscure

Adumbrate derives from Latin adumbrare, "to sketch" (literally, "to shade towards," hence "to foreshadow or prefigure"), from ad-, "towards" + umbrare, "to shade," from umbra, "shadow."

elbow tag

• When in a theater with shared armrests, the act of carefully adjusting one's posture so that your arm touches the arm of the person next to you, but not so much that they move their arm away.

Jenna was pretty sure Mark still believed in cooties, so she got all giddy during their Ice Age 3 date when she "won" a game of elbow tag.

Land of the Lost was so painful, I had to amuse myself by playing elbow tag with the stranger on my left.

Trivia

What sports great won more Most Valuable Player awards than any other player in any major professional sport in North America?

• Wayne Gretzky, who won the National Hockey League’s Hart Award—given annually to the MVP—nine times.

History:

• secret ballot: new voting method was introduced in Britain (1872)
• FDR: the 32nd POTUS was nominated for an unprecedented third term in office (1940)
• Nadia Comaneci: 14-year-old Romanian earned the first perfect 10 in Olympics gymnastics (1976)

Birthdays:

• William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863): author of Vanity Fair; writers Clifford Odets (1906-1963), Jessamyn West (1907-1984) and Yevgeny Yevtushenko (76) share this birth date
• Andrey Gromyko (1909-1989): Soviet statesman
• Nelson Mandela (91): former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• John Glenn, Jr. (88): astronaut and senator
• Dick Button (80): champion figure skater
• Dion DiMucci (70): singer, Dion and the Belmonts; musiciansMartha Reeves (68) and Jack Irons (47) were also born on this date
• Chace Crawford (24): Gossip Girl's Nate Archibald, and this year's hottest bachelor according to People magazine; : also, actors James Brolin (69), Vin Diesel (42), Elizabeth McGovern (48) and Kristen Bell (29)