Friday, December 11, 2009

recalcitrant \rih-KAL-sih-truhnt\, adjective:

• Stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint.

Recalcitrant derives from Latin recalcitrare, "to kick back," from re-, "back" + calcitrare, "to strike with the heel, to kick," from calx, calc-, "the heel."

Canadian Refrigerator

• A bank or pile of snow during the colder months of winter, where food or beverage products (namely soda and beer) can be stored. Great for parties.

"Are we out of Molson Canadian?"
"There's plenty in the Canadian refrigerator."
Trivia
What is the only edible fruit produced by plants in the orchid family?

• The vanilla bean.

Today in History

• UNICEF: United Nations Children's Fund, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, was founded (1946)
• Chechnya: Moscow sent in troops to restore control over the region (1994)
• Madoff scandal: Bernie Madoff: the former NASDAQ chairman was arrested for perpetrating what may be the largest Ponzi scheme in Wall Street history; he was sentenced to 150 years in prison (2008)

Today's Birthdays

• Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): composer, Symphonie fantastique
• Robert Koch (1843-1910): bacteriologist who proved causal effect of bacteria on disease; plus, scientists David Brewster (1781-1868), Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941) and Max Born (1882-1970)
• Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006): first Arabic-language winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) shared this birth date
• David Gates (69): singer/songwriter, Bread; also, singers Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984), Brenda Lee (65) and Jermaine Jackson (55)
• Mos Def (36): rapper/actor, Something the Lord Made; other entertainers born on this date include Rita Moreno (78), Lynda Day George and Teri Garr (both 65), Bess Armstrong (56), Gary Dourdan (43) and Mo'Nique (42)
• Nikki Sixx (51): Birth Name: Franklin Carlton Serafino Feranna, bassist / Mötley Crüe