Thursday, February 2, 2012

peroration \per-uh-REY-shuhn\, noun:

1. A long speech characterized by lofty and often pompous language.
2. Rhetoric. The concluding part of a speech or discourse, in which the speaker or writer recapitulates the principal points and urges them with greater earnestness and force.

Peroration comes from the Latin word perōrātiōn which meant "a closing speech."

empty gesture

• Making a nice (fake) gesture for someone when you don't really mean it, hoping that the person who you are making that gesture to won't actually as you for a favor, or follow up on that offer you made. You just say it to seem like a nice person.

This phrase is used in Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Larry David: Well, If there is anything I can do, let me know.

Marty Funkhouser: You know what, there is something you can do.

Larry David: What, are you kidding?

Marty Funkhouser: What, you didn't mean it?

Larry David: Of course not!

Marty Funkhouser: Well why did you say it then?

Larry David: You know, it's an empty gesture; something to say!

Larry David (saying to Jeff Greene): Don't make an empty gesture to a Funkhouser, they'll take you up on it!

Trivia

In personal ads, what does the acronym DDF stand for?

• Drug and disease free.

Today's Holiday

• Groundhog Day 

History

• 1653 - New Amsterdam, now known as New York City, was incorporated. 
• 1848 - The first shipload of Chinese emigrants arrived in San Francisco, CA.
• 1863 - Samuel Langhorne Clemens used a pseudonym for the first time. He is better remembered by the pseudonym which is Mark Twain.
• 1878 - Greece declared war on Turkey. 
• 1880 - The S.S. Strathleven arrived in London with the first successful shipment of frozen mutton from Australia.
• 1913 - Grand Central Terminal officially opened at 12:01 a.m. Even though construction was not entirely complete more than 150,000 people visited the new terminal on its opening day.
• 1935 - Leonard Keeler conducted the first test of the polygraph machine, in Portage, WI.
• 1962 - The 8th and 9th planets aligned for the first time in 400 years.
• 1943 - During World War II, the remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered to the Soviets. Stalingrad has since been renamed Volgograd.
• 1945 - U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill left for a summit in Yalta with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
• 1946 - The first Buck Rogers automatic pistol was made.
• 1967 - The American Basketball Association was formed by representatives of the NBA.
• 1971 - Idi Amin assumed power in Uganda after a coup that ousted President Milton Obote.
• 1973 - Keith Emerson injures his hands when a rigged piano prematurely explodes during a concert in San Francisco. 
• 1978 - Van Halen signed with Warner Brothers Records.
• 1979 - At the age of 21, ex-Sex Pistol bass player Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in the New York City apartment of his present girlfriend, Michelle Robinson.
• 1989 - The final Russian armored column left Kabul, Afghanistan, after nine years of military occupation.
• 1993 - Willie Nelson and the IRS settle their longstanding tax feud. The U.S. government kept $3.6 million in assets it had already seized and Nelson would have to pay $5.4 million of the $13.1 million balance. 
• 1998 - U.S. President Clinton introduced the first balanced budget in 30 years.
• 1999 - 19 people were killed at Luanda international airport when a cargo plane crashed just after takeoff.
• 1999 - Hugo Chávez Frías took office. He had been elected president of Venezuela in December 1998.
• 2004 - It was reported that a white powder had been found in an office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) later confirmed that the powder was the poison ricin

Birthdays

• Fritz Kreisler 1875
• James Joyce 1882
• Charles Correll 1890
• George Halas 1895
• Jascha Heifetz 1901
• Ayn Rand 1905
• Gale Gordon 1906
• Burton Lane 1912
• James Dickey 1923
• Elaine Stritch 1926
• Stan Getz 1927
• Russell Arms 1929
• Robert Mandan 1932
• Tom Smothers 1937
• Martina Arroyo 1937
• Alan Caddy (The Tornados, Johnny Kidd and The Pirates) 1940
• Bo Hopkins 1942
• Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) 1942
• Howard Bellamy (The Bellamy Brothers) 1946
• Farrah Fawcett 1947
• Peter Lucia (Tommy James and The Shondells) 1947
• Brent Spiner 1949
• Ross Valory (Journey) 1949
• Christie Brinkley 1954
• Kim Zimmer 1955
• Michael Talbott 1955
• Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) 1966 - Stone Temple Pilots Official Store
• Ben Mize (Counting Crows) 1971
• T-Mo (Goodie Mob) 1972
• Lori Beth Denberg 1976
• Shakira 1977