Tuesday, January 3, 2017

descry \dih-SKRY\, transitive verb:

1. To catch sight of, especially something distant or obscure; to discern.

2. To discover by observation; to detect.

Descry comes from Middle English, from Old French descrier, "to cry out, to proclaim." The Middle English word was originally applied to shouting one's discovery of an enemy, of game, or of land.

 

Paper GPS (n),

• any non-electronic format used for finding directions.

Examples:

A road atlas, foldout paper road map, handwritten directions, directions printed from free online map Web sites.

"John, how will you find our place if you get lost?"

Trivia

According to ufologists, what is a close encounter of the fourth kind?

• The abduction of a human by an extraterrestrial. A close encounter of the third kind is the sighting of an extraterrestrial.

History

• Meiji Restoration: re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and led to the fall of the shoguns (1868)
• the Curse of the Bambino: Red Sox losing streak began with the team's sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees; it lasted till 2004 (1920)
• March of Dimes: fundraising organization was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to raise funds for the battle against poliomyelitis; it later expanded its aim to the prevention of premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality (1938)
• Alaska: the territory once known as Seward's Folly became the 49th and largest US state (1959)

Birthdays

• Marcus Tullius Cicero 106 B.C.
• Lucretia Mott 1793
• Clement Attlee 1883
• Anna Pavlova 1885
• J.R.R. Tolkien 1892 (LOTR)
• Marion Davies 1897
• Zasu Pitts 1898
• Ray Milland 1905
• Victor Borge 1909
• Joseph Rauh 1911
• Maxene Andrews (The Andrews Sisters) 1916
• John Russell 1921
• Bill Travers 1922
• Hank Stram 1924
• George Martin 1926
• Joan Walsh Anglund 1926
• Robert Loggia 1930
• Dabney Coleman 1932
• Coo Coo (Clifton) Marlin 1932
• Bobby Hull (NHL) 1939
• Van Dyke Parks 1943

• Victoria Principal 1944
• Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield) 1945
• Betty Rollin 1946
• John Paul Jones (Baldwin) 1946
• Melody Anderson 1955
• Mel Gibson 1956
• Shannon Sturges 1968
• James Carter 1969
• Michael Schumacher 1969
• Jason Marsden 1975
• Danica McKellar 1975