Tuesday, June 21, 2011

pullulate \PUHL-yuh-leyt\, verb:

1. To exist abundantly; swarm; teem.

2. To send forth sprouts, buds, etc.

3. To increase rapidly; multiply.

Pullulate derives from the Latin pullulatus, "to grow or sprout," and relates to the Latin noun pullus, "a young animal."

feed the beast

• to send a high-maintenance partner a text message in order to keep them sweet and avoid them getting upset that you are ignoring them. Similar to a feeding a tamagotchi, you send these texts to keep the relationship alive.

A: You coming to the pub mate?

B: Yeah, of course. One minute though, I just gotta feed the beast first.

Trivia

Who wrote the Yale University fight song that opens with the line, “Bull-dog! Bull-dog! Bow, wow, wow”?

• Composer Cole Porter, Yale class of 1913. The bulldog (Handsome Dan) is Yale’s mascot.

History

• US Constitution: went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it (1788)
• Ellen Louks Fairclough: was sworn in as the first female member of the Canadian cabinet (1957)
• Women's National Basketball Association: league play began (1997)
• polio: the World Health Organization declared Europe free of the disease (2002)
• SpaceShipOne: the first privately funded and developed spacecraft was launched over the Mojave Desert and piloted into space by Michael Melvill (2004)
• Pluto: newly discovered moons were named Nix and Hydra (2006)

Birthdays

• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980): existentialist author, Being and Nothingness; plus, writers Moses Hess (1812-1875), Joaquim Machado de Assis (1839-1908), Jose Graça Aranha (1868-1931), Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) and Françoise Sagan (1935-2004)
• Shirin Ebadi (64): first Iranian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
• Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007): Pakistan's first female prime minister
• Berke Breathed (54): creator of Bloom County; cartoonist Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003) was also born today
• Doug Savant (47): Tom Scavo on Desperate Housewives; also, actors Jane Russell (1921-2011), Bernie Kopell (78), Monte Markham (76), Ron Ely (73), Mariette Hartley (71), Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross (both 64), Juliette Lewis (38) and Chris Pratt (32)
• Prince William (29): second in line to the British throne

Read more: http://www.answers.com/