Saturday, January 15, 2011

felicitate \fi-LIS-i-teyt\, verb:

1. To compliment upon a happy event; congratulate.

2. Archaic: To make happy.

Felicitate stems from the Latin felicitare, "to make happy."

wall an hb

• The act of wishing someone 'happy birthday' in Facebook wall post (actually knowing the person IRL is optional); past tense: wall'd him/her an hb

If I'm online, and it's your birthday, odds are that I will wall an hb

***

Person 1: Did you wish Tim a happy birthday?

Person 2: Yes... I wall'd him an hb

Trivia

Which state was the first to apologize for slavery?

• Virginia, in February 2007, when its legislature unanimously approved a resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery.

History

• British Museum: opened to the public in Montague House in the Bloomsbury district of London (1759)
• Harper's Weekly: published an editorial cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in which he used a donkey to represent the Democratic party; he had meant for the animal to indicate an anti-war faction (1870)
• the Pentagon: opened; at the time, it was the world's largest office building (1943)
• Super Bowl I: the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs (35-10) at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1967)

Birthdays

• Molière (1622-1673): playwright, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope; plus, writers Goodman Ace (1899-1982) and Ernest J. Gaines (78)
• Edward Teller (1908-2003): the main architect of the hydrogen bomb
• Gene Krupa (1909-1973): jazz drummer and bandleader
• Gamal Abdul Nasser (1918-1970): Egyptian president from 1954 to 1970
• Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968): civil rights leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner
• James Nesbitt (46): actor, Jekyll, Five Minutes of Heaven; other actors who share this birth date include Lloyd Bridges (1913-1998), Andrea Martin (64), Mario Van Peebles (54), Chad Lowe (43), Regina King (40) and Eddie Cahill (33)
• Matt Holliday (31): Cardinals left-fielder; also, athletes Mary Pierce (36) and Drew Brees (32)