Saturday, February 20, 2010

egregious \ih-GREE-juhs\, adjective:

• Conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible.

Egregious derives from Latin egregius, separated or chosen from the herd, from e-, ex-, out of, from + grex, greg-, herd, flock. Egregious was formerly used with words importing a good quality (that which was distinguished "from the herd" because of excellence), but now it is joined with words having a bad sense. It is related to congregate (to "flock together," from con-, together, with + gregare, to assemble, from grex); segregate (from segregare, to separate from the herd, from se-, apart + gregare); and gregarious (from gregarius, belonging to a flock).

Noted.

• A reply posted when someone puts a status on facebook, myspace, etc. Sarcastically shows that you care, and are going to write the status down in a notebook, when you really dont care at all about the status.

Facebook Status- John Smith is goin to the movies
Comment-
Noted.
Trivia
What mammal has the densest fur?

• The sea otter, the smallest of the marine mammals, which has up to a million hairs per square inch on its back.

History

• scalping: first recorded case of white men scalping Native Americans (1725)
• United States Post Office Department: was established when George Washington signed the Postal Service Act; it lasted until 1971, when it was replaced with the United States Postal Service (1792)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art: opened in New York City, aiming to promote class harmony through art (1872)
• Canberra: colorful politician King O'Malley drove in the stake which marked the beginning of the development of Australia's capital city (1913)
• John Glenn, Jr.: became the first American to orbit Earth, aboard the Friendship 7 (1962)

Berfdays

• Cindy Crawford (44): supermodel
• Robert Altman (1925-2006): director, MASH, Gosford Park; director Mike Leigh (67) was also born today
• Bobby Unser (76): three-time Indy 500 winner; plus, sportsmen Phil Esposito (68), Charles Barkley (47) and Stephon Marbury (33)
• Brenda Blethyn (64): actor, Saving Grace, Pride and Prejudice; other actors born today include Sidney Poitier (83), Sandy Duncan (64),Peter Strauss (63), Jennifer O'Neill (62), Anthony Stewart Head (56), James Wilby (54), French Stewart (46), Ron Eldard (45), Andrew Shue and Lili Taylor (both 43) and Lauren Ambrose (32)
• Gordon Brown (59): British PM; former Russian premier Aleksey Kosygin (1904-1980) shared this birth date
• Rihanna (22): singer, Good Girl Gone Bad; also, musicians Jimmy Yancey (1898-1951), Nancy Wilson (73), Buffy Sainte-Marie (69) and Kurt Cobain (1967-1994)