Thursday, January 5, 2023

prevaricate \prih-VAIR-uh-kayt\, intransitive verb:

• To depart from or evade the truth; to speak with equivocation.

Prevaricate derives from the past participle of Latin praevaricari, "to pass in front of, or over, by straddling; to walk crookedly; to collude," from prae, "before, in front of" + varicare, "to straddle," from varicus, "straddling," from varus, "bent."

 

New Year's Block

• A condition that usually takes place the first couple of weeks into the new year, in which a person keeps writing in the last/previous year in place of the new one.

-doggonit! this is my third check today I write in the "old" year! -I know, you're not alone! I guess I got new year's block too, sorry to say.

 

Trivia

At what temperature are the readings on both Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers exactly the same?

• −40°.

History

• x-rays: discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen was announced; though their exact nature was unknown to him (hence the name), the achievement won him the first Nobel Prize in Physics (1896)

  
• minimum wage: Henry Ford instituted the first minimum wage; he paid his employees at least $5 a day (1914)
• Fair Deal: newly reelected president Harry S. Truman coined the phrase to refer to a 21-point program he sent to Congress in 1945, focusing on civil rights and social welfare (1949)
• Prague Spring: a brief period of reform began in Czechoslovakia; it ended later in the year with a Soviet invasion (1968)
• Eris: largest dwarf planet was discovered (2005)

Birthdays

• Stephen Decatur 1779
• Edmund Ruffin 1794
• Jeannette Piccard 1895
• George Reeves 1914
• Al Blozis 1919
• Erica Morini 1919
• Jean-Pierre Aumont 1911
• Sam Phillips 1920
• Buddy Young 1926
• W.D. Snodgrass 1926
• Fred Glover 1928
• Walter 'Fritz' Mondale 1928
• Robert Duvall 1930
• Alvin Ailey 1931
• Chuck Noll 1932
• Johnny Adams 1932
• Francois d'Aulan 1932
• Earl Battey 1935
• Lindsay Crosby 1938
• Chuck McKinley 1941
• Wayne Rutledge 1942
• Sam Wyche 1945
• Diane Keaton 1946
• Ted Lange 1947
• George "Funky" Brown (Kool and the Gang) 1949
• Chris Stein (Blondie) 1950
• Pamela Sue Martin 1953
• Clancy Brown 1959
• Suzy Amis 1961
• Iris Dement 1961
• Jeff Fassero 1963
• Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson) 1967
• Joe Juneau 1968
• Marilyn Manson 1970
• Kylie Bax 1975
• January Jones 1978