Friday, October 8, 2010

wassail \WAH-sul; wah-SAYL\, noun:

1. An expression of good wishes on a festive occasion, especially in drinking to someone.

2. An occasion on which such good wishes are expressed in drinking; a drinking bout; a carouse.

3. The liquor used for a wassail; especially, a beverage formerly much used in England at Christmas and other festivals, made of ale (or wine) flavored with spices, sugar, toast, roasted apples, etc.

adjective:

1. Of or pertaining to wassail, or to a wassail; convivial; as, a wassail bowl.

transitive verb:

1. To drink to the health of; a toast.

intransitive verb:

1. To drink a wassail.

Wassail is from the Middle English expression of festive benevolence, wæs hæil!, be well!, from Old Norse ves heill, be (ves) well (heill).

facebook fever noun:

• The uncontrollable urge to check one's facebook every time one comes in contact with a computer.

Sam: "Dude, you've been on the computer for four hours reloading the same page. Don't you have a final exam tomorrow?"

Kyle: "Facebook Fever."

Sam: "No one has posted on your wall in days."

Kyle: "How do you know? They could have posted in between now and the last time that I reloaded the page!"

Trivia

By what name do we know the company established in 1839 as the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company?

• The Cunard Line.

History

• Empress Myeongseong: the last empress of Korea was assassinated by the Japanese (1895)
• perfect game: Don Larsen pitched what remains the only perfect game in World Series history; the Yankees beat the Dodgers, 2-0 (1956)
• Che Guevara: leftist revolutionary hero was captured by the Bolivian army; he was executed the next day (1967)
• water speed record: was set by Australian Ken Warby at 318 mph/510 kph near Tumut, New South Wales; it still stands (1978)
• Solidarity: and the rest of Poland's labor unions were banned (1982); Solidarity continued to work underground, until it was declared legal in 1989
• Kashmir: a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killed some 80,000 and injured 65,000 on the Pakistan-India border (2005)

Birthdays

• Heinrich Schutz (1585 JC-1672): composer and organist
• Juan Perón (1895-1974): president of Argentina
• Jesse Jackson (69): civil rights activist
• R.L. Stine (67): author of Goosebumps books; Dune writer Frank Herbert (1920-1986) shared this birth date
• Sigourney Weaver (61): award-winning actress, Aliens and Avatar; other actors born today include Paul Hogan (71), Chevy Chase (67), Darrell Hammond (55), Stephanie Zimbalist (54), Emily Procter (42), Matt Damon (40), Nick Cannon (30) and Angus T. Jones (17)