Saturday, August 29, 2009

chary \CHAIR-ee\, adjective:

1. Wary; cautious.
2. Not giving or expending freely; sparing.

Chary comes from Old English cearig, "careful, sorrowful," from cearu, "grief, sorrow, care."

mascary

• when a person wears a scary amount of mascara

Although Melanie thought her mascara application was flawless, her eyelashes really looked like scary spiderlegs

Trivia

Which two popular mystery writers set their stories in the same fictional seaside town of Santa Teresa, California?

• Ross Macdonald, in his Lew Archer mysteries; and Sue Grafton, in her Kinsey Millhone mysteries.

Today in History:

• Atahualpa: last sovereign Incan emperor was garroted by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro, who thus defeated the Incan Empire and conquered Peru (1533)
• Shay's Rebellion: uprising began in Massachusetts, led by Revolutionary War captain Daniel Shays; farmers were protesting crushing debt and taxes (1786)
• The Beatles: gave their last paid concert, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, now Monster Park (1966)
• Hurricane Katrina: the costliest natural disaster in US history made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, devastating cities, most notably New Orleans (2005)

Today's Birthdays:

• John Locke (1632-1704): English empiricist philosopher who influenced the American and French revolutions
• Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949): Nobel Prize-winning writer; author Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) shared this birth date
• Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982): Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-award winning actress; actors Elliot Gould (71), G.W. Bailey (64), Ray Wise (62), Rebecca DeMornay (48?) and Carla Gugino (38) also have birthdays today
• Richard Attenborough (86): director of Gandhi and Cry Freedom; directors William Friedkin and Joel Schumacher (both 70) were also born on this date
• John McCain (73): US senator from Arizona and the Republican candidate for president in 2008
• Michael Jackson (1958-2009): pop superstar who died suddenly from an overdose last month; other musicians who share his birth date include Charlie Parker (1920-1955) and Dinah Washington (1924-1963)