Monday, March 21, 2011

usufruct (YOO-zuh-fruhkt, -suh-) noun:

• The right to use and enjoy another's property without destroying it.

Etymology: From Latin ususfructus, from usus et fructus (use and enjoyment). Earliest documented use: 1646.

Safe Sexting

• The act of using a password or other safety feature to prevent your friends, parents, girlfriends, etc from discovering your assortment of hot or racy pictures on your cell, computer, email or other encrypt-able devices.

Girl : I dunno, should I send john this pic?

Girl two : It's fine, John practices Safe Sexting!

Girl : That's good, no way that this pic will get into the wrong hands if he is Safe Sexting.

Trivia

Where did Edward Albee find the title for his hit play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

• Scrawled on a mirror in a Greenwich Village tavern that invited customers to write slogans and graffiti with a bar of soap. Albee, who spotted the phrase in 1954, gave it immortality in 1962 after discarding Exorcism as the title of his play.

History

• Archbishop of Canterbury: Thomas Cranmer, who helped move England towards Protestantism, was burned at the stake (1556)
• Code Napoléon: the first modern legal code of France took effect; it was divided into laws of personal status, laws of property, and laws of acquiring property (1804)
• Henry Stanley: journalist began his trek in Africa to locate missing Scottish missionary/explorer David Livingstone; his quest ended with the famous and possibly fictitious words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (1871)
• "Who shot JR?": J.R. Ewing, the character played by Larry Hagman on Dallas, was shot by an unidentified attacker; a summer of intense curiosity ensued and an advertising catchphrase was born (1980)
• Rick Hansen: set off on his Man in Motion tour to circumnavigate the world in his wheelchair (1985); he returned to Vancouver 2 years and 2 months later, having raised millions for spinal cord research

Birthdays

• Saint Nicholas of Flue (1417-1487): Switzerland's patron saint
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): composer of the Brandenburg Concertos; and, musicians Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), Joseph Silverstein (79), Rose Stone (66)
• Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830): mathematician and physicist, Fourier series
• Benito Juárez (1806-1872): 5-term president of Mexico
• Gary Oldman (53): actor, Harry Potter's Sirius Black, The Dark Knight's Jim Gordon; also, actors Al Freeman, Jr. (77), Marie-Christine Barrault (67), Timothy Dalton (65), Rosie O'Donnell and Matthew Broderick (both 49), and Laura Allen (37)
• Ronaldinho (31): Brazilian soccer star