Tuesday, April 26, 2011

turncoat (TUHRN-koht)noun:

• Someone who changes allegiance and joins the opposite side.

Etymology: The color, and especially the color of clothing, has long symbolized association with a particular cause. For example, soldiers in an army or players in a sports team don a designated color. The idea behind the word turncoat is someone switching allegiances and turning his coat inside out to hide his earlier colors. Earliest documented use: 1567.

Work Sandwich

• Back to back shifts, sp. closing shift followed by an opening shift the next day, primarily making a night on the town impractical.

I can't man, work sandwich.

Trivia

Who was the inspiration for high-rolling gambler Sky Masterson in the Damon Runyon short stories that were the basis of the Broadway and movie musical Guys and Dolls?

• Western legend Bat Masterson, whom Runyon knew during the onetime frontiersman’s second career as a newspaper sportswriter in New York City.

History

• Cape Henry: Jamestown settlers made landfall on this Virginia promontory (1607)
• Marshall Henri Pétain: the leader of France's Vichy government was arrested (1945); he died in prison in 1951
• Tanzania: African republic was formed by the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar (1964)

Birthdays

• David Hume (1711-1776): philosopher, wrote A Treatise of Human Nature
• John James Audubon (1785-1851): ornithologist and artist; plus, artist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
• Charles Richter (1900-1985): the seismologist who developed the Richter Scale
• Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903): landscape architect who designed Central Park; architect I. M. Pei (94) was also born on this date
• Bernard Malamud (1914-1986): author of The Fixer and The Natural; also, writers Anita Loos (1893?-1981) and Morris West (1916-1999)
• Jet Li (48): martial arts movie star, War; also, actors Giancarlo Esposito (53), Michael Damian (49), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (44), Jason Earles and Tom Welling (both 34), and Jordana Brewster and Channing Tatum (both 31)
• Kevin James (46): comedian, actor, King of Queens; comic and actor Carol Burnett (78) shares this birth date
• T-Boz (41): singer, TLC; plus, musicians Ma Rainey (1886-1939), Duane Eddy (73), Bobby Rydell (69), Gary Wright (68), Roger Taylor (51) and Chris Mars (50)