Wednesday, April 14, 2010

bloviate \BLOH-vee-ayt\, intransitive verb:

• To speak or write at length in a pompous or boastful manner.

Bloviate is from blow + a mock-Latinate suffix -viate. Compare blowhard, "a boaster or braggart." Bloviation is the noun form; a bloviator is one who bloviates.

text-killer

• Phrases and words such as "lol yeah" and "haha ok" that are guaranteed to kill any text conversation.

"r u coming 2 the prty 2nite?"
"no i cant cuz i hav 2 go 2 a family reunion"
"haha ok"
"way to use a text-killer... now wat do i say?"

Trivia

What is the greatest number of Friday the 13ths possible in a single calendar year?

• Three. The last time there were three was last year; next time will be in 2012. This year there will be only one, in August. 

History

• Noah Webster: published his American Dictionary of the English Language, insisting on American spelling (1828)
• Abraham Lincoln: was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC; the president died of his wounds the following day (1865)
• J.C. Penney: opened his first store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, earning a first-year profit of $8,514.36 on sales of $28,898.11 (1902)

Birthdays

• 
  
  Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695): astronomer, mathematician and physicist; historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) shared this birth date
• 
  
  Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936): Helen Keller's teacher
• 
  
  Juan Belmonte (1892-1962): one of history's greatest matadors; plus, baseball pro Pete Rose (69)
• 
  
  Francois Duvalier (1907-1971): dictator of Haiti, aka "Papa Doc"
• 
  
  Loretta Lynn (75): country music singer, Coal Miner's Daughter; plus, musicians Ritchie Blackmore (65)
• 
  
  Abigail Breslin (14): actor, Little Miss Sunshine, Nim's Island; also, actors John Gielgud (1904-2000), Rod Steiger (1925-2002), Bradford Dillman (80), Julie Christie (70), John Shea (61), Robert Carlyle (49), Brad Garrett (50), Anthony Michael Hall (42), Adrien Brody (37) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (33)