Tuesday, May 24, 2011

prink \PRINGK\, transitive verb:

1. To dress up; to deck for show.

intransitive verb:

1. To dress or arrange oneself for show; to primp.

Prink is probably an alteration of prank, from Middle English pranken, "to show off," perhaps from Middle Dutch pronken, "to adorn oneself," and from Middle Low German prunken (from prank, "display").

sore winner

• A sore winner is someone who wins and spends far too much time gloating over it, to the point that the rest of the people feel poorly about even participating.

Ali was a sore winner when he sang "We Are The Champions" after winning the NCAA Bracket.

Trivia

What 19th-century American literary classic was originally going to be called The Pathetic Family?

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott who used the phrase “pathetic family” in affectionately referring to her own family.

Today in History:

• "What hath God wrought?": inventor Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the first telegraph message; it went from Washington, DC, to Baltimore and it quoted Numbers 23:23 (1844)
• Brooklyn Bridge: engineering marvel linking Brooklyn and Manhattan opened to traffic (1883)
• Crosley Field: hosted MLB's first nighttime game played under lights; Cincinnati's Reds beat Philadelphia's Phillies, 2-1 (1935)
• Concorde: supersonic passenger aircraft began flying to Washington, DC (1976)
• James Jeffords: Republican senator became an Independent, giving control of the US Senate to the Democrats (2001)

Today's Birthdays:

• Queen Victoria (1819-1901): Britain's longest-reigning queen
• Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950): founder of Het Volk who became prime minister of South Africa
• Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984): Nobel Prize-winning novelist, The Silent Don
• Patti LaBelle (67): R&B singer; plus, musicians Rosanne Cash (56), Heavy D (44) and Big Tyme (30)
• Jim Broadbent (62): actor, Iris, Moulin Rouge, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; also, actors Tommy Chong (73), Gary Burghoff (71), Priscilla Presley (66), Alfred Molina (58), Kristin Scott Thomas (51), John C. Reilly (46), Eric Close (43) and Bryan Greenberg (33)