Friday, July 6, 2012

volant

1. having the wings extended as if in flight — used of a heraldic bird
2. flying or capable of flying
3. quick, nimble

English picked up "volant" from Middle French. The term survives in Modern French as well, both as an adjective having essentially the same meaning as the English term, and as a noun with several meanings (among them "shuttlecock"). The influence of French can be seen doubly in the heraldic sense of "volant": in heraldic contexts, as in our first example sentence above, the adjective "volant" almost always appears after the noun — a syntax picked up from French along with the meaning. Ultimately, "volant" comes from the Latin verb "volare," meaning "to fly." Another word that came to English through Middle French from "volare" is "volley," which refers to things flying back and forth through the air.

hottay

• Human with a nice body and face. Not ugly.

Wow, that Stacey is a hottay!
Trivia

What TV and movie series featured a super-secret undercover government agency known by the acronym IMF?

• Mission Impossible. IMF stands for Impossible Missions Force.

History

• Sir Thomas More: author of Utopia was beheaded for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as head of the new Church of England; More was canonized 400 years later (1535)
• Major League Baseball All-Star Game: was first played, in Chicago, as part of the 1933 World's Fair; AL over NL, 4-2 (1933)
• Anne Frank: 13-year-old diarist took refuge from the Nazis, along with her family, in the Secret Annex; they were discovered two years later and most were slaughtered (1942)
• AK-47 production begins. Goes on to become the most reliable and widely used rifle in teh world (1947)
• The Beatles: John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time (1957)
• Althea Gibson: became the first black woman to win the women's singles tennis match at Wimbledon and the US Open (1957)

Birthdays

• John Paul Jones 1747 - First United States' well known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War
• Harold Vanderbilt 1884 - American railroad executive
• LaVerne Andrews 1911 - Singer (The Andrews Sisters)
• Sebastian Cabot 1918 - Actor
• Nancy Reagan (Anne Frances Robbins) 1921 - Wife of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, actress
• William Schallert 1922 - Actor ("The Patty Duke Show")
• Merv Griffin 1925 - Television host, singer
• Susan Cabot 1927 - Actress
• Pat Paulsen (Patrick Layton "Pat" Paulsen) 1927 - Comedian, satirist
• Janet Leigh 1927 - Actress
• Bill Haley 1927 - Musician (Bill Haley and His Comets)
• Della Reese 1931 - Actress, singer
• Dalai Lama (Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, usually shortened to Tenzin Gyatso) 1935 - Fourteenth Dalai Lama
• Ned Beatty 1937 - Actor
• Gene Chandler (Eugene Dixon) 1937 - Singer, known as "The Duke of Earl"
• Jeannie Seely 1940 - Country music singer
• Ric Elswit 1945 - Musician (Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show)
• Burt Ward 1946 - Actor, best known for his role as Robin in the television series "Batman"
• Fred Dryer 1946 - Football player, actor ("Hunter")
• Jamie Wyeth 1946 - Artist
• Sylvester Stallone 1946 - Actor ("Rocky" series of movies)
• George W. Bush (U.S.) 1946 - 43rd President of the United States
• Nathalie Baye 1948 - Actress
• Geoffrey Rush 1951 - Actor
• Shelly Hack 1952 - Actress, model
• Grant Goodeve 1952 - Actor ("Eight is Enough"), television host
• Nanci Griffith 1953 - Singer, guitarist, songwriter
• Allyse Beasley 1954 - Actress ("Moonlighting")
• Willie Randolph 1954 - Baseball player, manager
• John Jorgenson 1956 - Musician (Desert Rose Band, The Hellecasters, Elton John)
• Ron Duguay 1957 - Hockey player, coach
• Jon Keeble 1959 - Musician (Spandau Ballet)
• Glenn Scarpelli 1968 - Actor ("One Day at a Time")
• Stacey "Mrs. Bax0jayz" 1971 - super hot hottie of the forevers!
• 50 Cent (Curtis James Jackson III) 1976 - Rapper, actor
• Tia Mowry (Tia Dashon Mowry Hardrict) 1978 - Actress
• Tamera Mowry (Tamera Darvette Mowry) 1978 - Actress
• Brandon Jacobs 1982 - Football player