Wednesday, June 2, 2010

goad \GOHD\, verb:

1. To prick or drive with, or as if with, a goad; prod; incite.

noun:

1. A stick with a pointed or electrically charged end, for driving cattle, oxen, etc.; prod.

2. Anything that pricks or wounds like such a stick.

3. Something that encourages, urges, or drives; a stimulus.

Goad starts out in Old English as gad, "spearhead", and takes on a more figurative meaning as "to prod as if with a spear" in the 1600s.

Birthday Brother

• A male who shares the same birthday as you. You were born on the same day of the same year. Even though you are not true brothers, this is a significantly close bond

See also Birthday Sister

Brady: Happy Birthday James.

James: Happy Birthday to you too, Birthday Brother.

Trivia

How did the Columbia University football team help the U.S.’s top-secret atom-bomb-building Manhattan Project during World War II?

• The entire team was called upon to move tons of uranium stored in Manhattan warehouses.

History

• Grover Cleveland: married Frances Folsom, becoming the first (and, so far, only) president to be married in the White House (1886)
• Native Americans: were granted US citizenship (1924)
• Lou Gehrig: Yankee slugger died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a rare degenerative disease that now carries his name (1941)
• Queen Elizabeth II: coronation of the long-reigning monarch was held in Westminster Abbey; she wore a gown embroidered with floral emblems of the countries of the Commonwealth (1953)

Berfdays, yo!

• Martha Washington (1731-1802): America's first First Lady; First Lady Helen Taft (1861-1943) shared this date
• Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): the novelist who wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles; plus, writers Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), John Lehmann (1907-1987?) and Barbara Pym (1913-1980)
• Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984): swimmer who switched strokes and became an actor, Tarzan the Ape Man
• Marvin Hamlisch (66): composer of A Chorus Line; other musicians born on this date were Edward Elgar (1857-1934), Charlie Watts (69) and Merril Bainbridge (42)
• Kyle Petty (50): racecar driver
• Wentworth Miller (38): Michael Scofield on Fox's Prison Break; also, actors Stacy Keach (69), Dennis Haysbert (56), Dana Carvey (55), Wayne Brady (38), Zachary Quinto (33), Nikki Cox and Justin Long (both 32)