Friday, December 17, 2010

horripilate \haw-RIP-uh-leyt\, verb:

To produce a bristling of the hair on the skin from cold, fear, etc.; goose flesh.

Horripilate is a compound of two Latin roots,horri-, "to bristle," and pil-, "of hair."

Jesus Jeans

ripped or "holy" jeans. They're so holy, they're jesus jeans!

Dude! LOOK AT MY NEW JESUS JEANS!

Trivia

When it comes to architecture, what’s a shotgun house?

• A one-story house that’s one room wide and at least three rooms deep, with no hallways between them. Designed for hot climates (before air-conditioning), they allow breezes to blow straight through the home—just as a shotgun blast would be expected to pass straight through.

History

• Shimabara Rebellion: Japanese peasant uprising began due to heavy taxation; 37,000 were beheaded (1637)
• Kitty Hawk: the Wright brothers successfully conducted the first controlled, sustained flight of a motor-powered airplane; they had been building flying devices for less than five years (1903)
• Japanese American internment: the US army announced that it would no longer hold Japanese Americans in relocation centers, allowing "evacuees" to return home (1944)
• Harold Holt: the Australian prime minister went missing and was presumed drowned while swimming off the coast of Portsea, Victoria (1967)
• Project Blue Book: US Air Force investigation into UFOs was terminated; the conclusion was that sightings were due to mass hysteria, hoaxes, mistakes and the like (1969)
• The Simpsons: the longest-running prime-time animated series premiered on Fox (1989)
• NAFTA: trade agreement was signed by Canada, the US and Mexico (1992)

Birthdays

• Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829): chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas"
• Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979): conductor of the Boston Pops
• William L. Safire (1929-2009): Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on politics and the English language; also, writers Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704), John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987) and Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1908-1984)
• Art Neville (72): musician, The Neville Brothers
• Eugene Levy (64): actor, A Mighty Wind, American Pie; also, actors Armin Mueller-Stahl (80), George Lindsey (75), Tommy Steele (74), Bernard Hill (66), Christopher Cazenove (65), Wes Studi (63), Bill Pullman (57), Sean Patrick Thomas (40), Giovanni Ribisi and Marissa Ribisi (both 36) and Sarah Paulson, Milla Jovovich (both 35) and Jennifer Carpenter (31)
• Peter Farrelly (54): film-maker, There's Something About Mary