Monday, April 25, 2011

marginalia \mahr-juh-NEY-lee-uh\, noun:

• Notes in the margin of a book, manuscript, or letter.

Marginalia derives from the Latin marginalis, "the space or edge of something, or something of little importance."

Backseat Browser

• Anyone who sits behind a someone who is browsing the Internet while continuously instructing them on what to click on or what to type into the address/search bar. Most appropriately applied when the advice or commands are unsolicited and/or unwarranted.

Matt grew increasingly frustrated with Patrick, acting as a Backseat Browser, when he wouldn't stop telling Matt what links he should click on next.

Trivia

What was the first U.S. wine region to be granted “geographic indication status” by the European Union?

• Napa Valley, California, in May 2007. The geographic recognition bars vintners from other regions—particularly within the EU—from using the names Napa and Napa Valley on their products

History

• guillotine: highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier was beheaded in France's first public execution-by-guillotine (1792)
• Suez Canal: ground was broken on the waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea (1859)
• license plates: were required on cars in New York State — the first time in the US (1901)
• United Nations: delegates met in San Francisco to organize the international body (1945)
• double helix: in the magazine Nature, Francis Crick and James D. Watson published their "Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid," which described the structure of DNA (1953)

Birthdays

• Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658): Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland
• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): composer of Swan Lake and the 1812 Overture
• Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937): physicist and inventor of wireless telegraphy and recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics; another Nobel Prize laureate born on this date was Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)
• Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965): broadcast journalist and commentator
• Ella Fitzgerald (1918-1996): jazz singer known for scat; plus, musicians Albert King (1923-1992), Björn Ulvaeus and Stu Cook (both 66)
• Meadowlark Lemon (79): Harlem Globetrotters' "Clown Prince"; plus, NBA star Tim Duncan (35)
• Hank Azaria (47): Emmy-winning actor who provides many of the voices for The Simpsons; also, actors Paul Mazursky (81), Al Pacino (71), Bertrand Tavernier (70), Talia Shire (65), Renée Zellweger and Gina Torres (both 42), Jason Lee and Jason Wiles (both 41), and Emily Bergl (36)