Saturday, October 23, 2010

parse \PAHRS\, transitive verb:

1. To resolve (as a sentence) into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.

2. To describe grammatically by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence.

3. To examine closely or analyze critically, especially by breaking up into components.

4. To make sense of; to comprehend.

5. (Computer Science) To analyze or separate (input, for example) into more easily processed components.

intransitive verb:

1. To admit of being parsed.

Parse comes from the Latin pars (orationis), "part (of speech)."

mac-envy

• a state of mind in which a PC owner realizes his computer sucks, then is immediately jealous of all his mac - owning friends.

"I just upgraded to Vista."

"I got a mac."

"BITCH!"

"That's a case of mac envy if I ever saw it."

Trivia

What do aardvarks eat?

• Ants and termites. The name aardvark means “earth pig” in the Afrikaans language.

History

• Brutus: committed suicide after losing to Mark Anthony and Octavian in the Second Battle of Philippi, a war fought to avenge the assassination of Julius Caesar (42 BCE)
• War of Jenkins' Ear: British PM Robert Walpole reluctantly declared war on Spain after a ship's captain brought in his ear, pickled, and told the House of Commons it had been severed by the Spanish coast guard (1739)
• suffragists: some 25,000 women marched in NYC, demanding the right to vote (1915)
• Hungarian Revolution: spontaneous protest began, marking the first anti-Soviet revolt; many thousands were killed or fled; the Hungarian Republic was declared exactly 33 years later (1956)
• iPod: digital music player was launched by Apple (2001)
• Moscow Theater Crisis: Chechen terrorists took 700 hostages; many died during a Russian raid the next day (2002)

Birthdays

• John Heisman (1869-1936): football coach after whom the Heisman Trophy is named
•  Johnny Carson (1925-2005): host of The Tonight Show
• Jim Bunning (79): pitcher-turned-politician; also, pitchers Al Leiter (45) and John Lackey (32)
• Pelé (70): Brazil's most famous soccer star; plus, swimmer Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003)

• Michael Crichton (1942-2008): author of Jurassic Park
• Ang Lee (56): Oscar-winning director of Brokeback Mountain; filmmakers Philip Kaufman (74) and Sam Raimi (51) share this birth date
• 'Weird Al' Yankovic (51): pop parodist; also, country star Dwight Yoakam (54)
• Ryan Reynolds (34): actor, The Proposal; actors Michael Rupert (59), Masiela Lusha (25) and Jessica Stroup (24) also celebrate birthdays today