Saturday, May 15, 2010

kibitz \KIB-its\, verb:

1. To chat; converse.
2. To look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others.

It derives from the Yiddish kibetsn, which is equivalent to the German kiebitzen, "to look on at cards."

Trivia
How many chemical elements on the periodic table are represented by a single letter?

• 14. They are B–Boron; C–Carbon; F–Fluorine; H–Hydrogen; I–Iodine; K–Potassium; N–Nitrogen; O–Oxygen; P–Phosphorus; S–Sulfur; U–Uranium; V–Vanadium; W–Tungsten; and Y–Yttrium.

History

• Las Vegas: the glitzy "entertainment capital of the world" was founded (1905)
• Standard Oil Company: in a historic ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Rockefeller's mega-monopoly; several of the pieces would later be known as Exxon, Mobil, Amoco and Chevron (1911)
• air mail: first route in US was set up between NY and Washington (1918); on a Boeing flight 12 years later, Ellen Church became the first stewardess (1930)
• nylon stockings: first went on sale in the US (1940)
• Portrait of Dr. Gachet: Van Gogh painting fetched a record high price of $82.5 million; the record stood till 2006, and Dr. Gachet is now No. 4 (1990)

Birthdays

• L. Frank Baum (1856-1919): author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; also, writers Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), Edwin Muir (1887-1959), Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) and twins Peter (84) and Anthony Shaffer (1926-2001)
• Pierre Curie (1859-1906): noted physicist and chemist
• Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986): Sherpa mountaineer who, along with Sir Edmund Hillary, was first to scale Mt. Everest
• Richard Avedon (1923-2004): innovative fashion photographer
• Brian Eno (62): electronic musician/producer; plus, musicians Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Anna Maria Alberghetti (74), Trini Lopez (73) and Ahmet Zappa (36)
• Giselle Fernandez (49): broadcast journalist who danced with the stars
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler (29): Meadow Soprano on The Sopranos; also, actors James Mason (1909-1984), Lainie Kazan (70), Chazz Palminteri (58), David Charvet (38) and David Krumholtz (32)