Monday, November 8, 2010

demotic \dih-MOT-ik\, adjective:

1. Of or pertaining to the common people; popular.

2. Of or pertaining to the ordinary, everyday, current form of a language; vernacular.

3. Of, pertaining to, or noting the simplified form of hieratic writing used in ancient Egypt between 700 b.c. and a.d. 500.

Demotic stems from the same Greek root as democracy, demotikos, "of or for the common people." Originally, the term described the simpler of two forms of ancient Egyptian writing.

no homo

Phrase used after one inadvertently says something that sounds gay.

His ass is mine. No homo.

Trivia

When spelled out, what is the only number that has its letters in alphabetic order?

• Forty.

History

• Louvre: the former royal French palace opened as a museum; it is now the most-visited art museum in the world (1793)
• x-rays: were discovered by William Röntgen; he was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement (1895)
• Three Gorges Dam: the Yangtze, China's largest river, was diverted in a massive ongoing construction project (1997)

Birthdays

• Edmond Halley (1656-1742): astronomer who discovered Halley's Comet
• Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949): Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gone With the Wind; Dracula's creator Bram Stoker (1847-1912) has the same birth date
• Christiaan Barnard (1923-2001): surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant; and, psychologist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922)
• Morley Safer (79): broadcast journalist, 60 Minutes; also, TV host Mary Hart (60)
• Bonnie Raitt (61): blues-rock musician; other singers born today include Patti Page (83), Rickie Lee Jones (56) and Leif Garrett (49)
• Matthew Rhys (36): Kevin Walker on Brothers and Sisters; also, actors Norman Lloyd (96), Alain Delon (75), Alfre Woodard (58), Courtney Thorne-Smith (43), Parker Posey (42), Roxana Zal (41), Gretchen Mol (38), Tara Reid (35), Dania Ramirez (31), Chris Rankin (27) and Jessica Lowndes (22)