Thursday, April 8, 2010

interlard \in-tuhr-LARD\, transitive verb:

• To insert between; to mix or mingle; especially, to introduce something foreign or irrelevant into; as, "to interlard a conversation with oaths or allusions."

Interlard comes from Middle French entrelarder, from Old French, from entre, "between" (from Latin inter-) + larder, "to lard," from larde, "lard," from Latin lardum. The original sense of the word, now obsolete, was "to place lard or bacon amongst; to mix, as fat meat with lean."

Bitchen

• The term for the room in an urban apartment in which the bathroom is located in the kitchen.

Trish's new apartment in Williamsburg has a Bitchen.
Trivia

What country once implemented a policy that its leaders jokingly referred to as the “Sinatra Doctrine”?

• The former Soviet Union, in 1989, when its then-president Mikhail Gorbachev announced that his government would no longer intervene in the internal affairs of its Eastern European neighbors. The doctrine’s nickname was a reference to the Frank Sinatra song “My Way,” because it allowed the U.S.S.R.’s neighbors to go their own way.

History

• Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.: the US Supreme Court ruled that the income tax in effect at the time was unconstitutional (1895)
• Times Square: Manhattan area was renamed in honor of then-tenant The New York Times (1904)
• Clint Eastwood: movie star was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea (1986)

Berfdays

• Harvey Cushing (1869-1939): Pulitzer Prize-winning neurosurgeon who created techniques that made certain brain surgeries possible 
• Sonja Henie (1912-1969): figure-skating champion
• Betty Ford (92): former FLOTUS and founder of the Betty Ford Center
• Kofi Annan (72): former UN secretary-general
• John Havlicek (70): NBA All Star; other ball players born today include: Catfish Hunter (1946-1999) and Gary Carter (56)
• Barbara Kingsolver (55): author of The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible
• Patricia Arquette (42): Emmy-winning actor, Medium; actors Mary Pickford (1893?-1979), John Schneider (50), Robin Wright Penn (44), Emma Caulfield (37), Taylor Kitsch (29), and Taran Noah Smith and Kirsten Storms (both 25) were also born on this date