Thursday, August 26, 2010

orthoepy \awr-THOH-uh-pee\, noun:

1. The study of correct pronunciation.

2. The study of the relationship between the pronunciation of words and their orthography.

Orthoepy is essentially a modification of the Greek orthoepeia, literally "correctness of diction."

lap flaps

• the pieces of paper that fall out of magazines into your lap.

This magazine is full of lap flaps!

Trivia

Who was the first male sports figure to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine?

• Basketball superstar LeBron James, in April 2008. In the cover photo, he was shown dribbling a basketball with his right hand while holding supermodel Gisele Bündchen around the waist with his left. Only two other men—Richard Gere (1992) and George Clooney (2000)—had preceded him on the magazine’s cover.

History

• Battle of Crécy: longbows helped the heavily outnumbered English defeat the French, marking the decline of chivalry and the rise of England as a world power (1346)
• 19th Amendment: women's suffrage became the law of the land in the US (1920)
• Donoghue v Stevenson: woman found a snail in her ginger beer; this case became a cornerstone of British law in the field of negligence (1928)
• MLB on TV: the first Major League Baseball game was televised from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York; the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers split a doubleheader (1939)
• International Hockey Hall of Fame: opened in Toronto (1961)
• Pope John Paul I: Italian cardinal dubbed the Smiling Pope assumed the papacy; he died 33 days later (1978)

Birthdays

• Shirley Manson (44): singer of Garbage
• Robert Walpole (1676-1745): considered Britain's first PM
• Prince Albert (1819-1861): prince consort of Queen Victoria
• Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986): novelist and playwright, The Berlin Stories; also, writers Jules Romains (1885-1972), Julio Cortázar (1914-1984), Ben Wattenberg (77) and Riley Weston (44)
• Albert Sabin (1906-1993): microbiologist who developed polio vaccine; plus, scientists Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), Lee De Forest (1873-1961) and Jerome Hunsaker (1886-1984)
• Branford Marsalis (50): Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist
• Will Shortz (58): crossword puzzle creator
• Chris Pine (30): young Captain Kirk in Star Trek; also, actors Brett Cullen (54), Chris Burke (45), Melissa McCarthy (40), Thalía (38), Macaulay Culkin (30) and Keke Palmer (17)