Sunday, November 20, 2011

mitigate \MIT-i-geyt\, verb:

1. To lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
2. To make less severe: to mitigate a punishment.
3. To make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
4. To become milder; lessen in severity.

irish goodbye

• leaving the bar or anywhere for that matter, without closing niceties, like a kiss goodbye to that annoying girl or mentioning something to your friends

Where'd Cornelius go?
He must have pulled another Irish goodbye, that bastard.
Trivia
Who was the first actress to win an Oscar for portraying a real-life Oscar winner?

• Cate Blanchett who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Aviator (2004).

History

• Peregrine White: the first child of English parents born in present-day New England, came into the world on the Mayflower, docked in Massachusetts Bay (1620)
• New Jersey: the Garden State became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights (1789)
• Nuremberg trials: an Allied tribunal began trying Nazis for war crimes; the defense of "I was following orders" was not accepted (1945)
• Elizabeth II: the future queen of England married Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey (1947)

Birthdays

• Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953): astronomer, namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope
• Alistair Cooke (1908-2004): longtime host of Masterpiece Theatre; journalist Judy Woodruff (65) shares this birth date
• Nadine Gordimer (88): author known for her anti-apartheid views in her native South Africa; other writers born on this date include Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) and Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940)
• Joseph Biden (69): US vice president; presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968) was also born on this date
• Joel McHale (40): comic actor, star of Community ; also, actors Estelle Parsons (84), Richard Dawson (79), Dick Smothers (73), Veronica Hamel (68), Samuel E. Wright (65), Richard Masur (63), Bo Derek (55), Sean Young (52), Ming-Na (48), Joshua Gomez (36) and Dan Byrd (26)

Read more: http://www.answers.com/ Mitigate is from the Latin roots mit (soft) and agere (to cause).