Saturday, January 29, 2011

cacoethes \kak-oh-EE-theez\, noun:

• An irresistible urge; mania.

Cacoethes stems from the Greek kakoethes, a combination of the roots kakos, "bad," and ethes, "character." The word occurs famously in Juvenal's Latin phrase insanabile scribendi cacoethes, "incurable passion for writing."

arch douche

1. the title given to someone high on the corporate ladder, in a position of authority, etc. who is also a douchebag.
2. a person who is not necessarily in authority over another but who is just a huge douchebag, i.e. on the scale of all douchebags instead of just on one ladder

Example 1: Jimmy is the arch douche of the accounting department.

Example 2: That guy is the fuckin' Arch Douche.

Trivia

What was the name of the only son of William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway?

• Hamnet. He and his twin sister, Judith, were born in 1585. Named for a family friend, baker Hamnet Sadler, he died at age 11, possibly of the bubonic plague.

History

• John Beckley: became the first Librarian of Congress; he was paid $2 a day (1802)
• "The Raven": Edgar Allen Poe's poetic lament for the lost Lenore was first published, in The New York Evening Mirror (1845)
• Compromise of 1850: Henry Clay introduced to Congress his proposal to settle slavery issues
• Baseball Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson were named the first inductees; the hall of fame and museum opened 3 years later (1936)
• Axis of Evil: Iran, Iraq and North Korea were named "regimes that sponsor terror" in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address (2002)

Birthdays

• Thomas Paine (1737-1809): pamphleteer, Common Sense
• William McKinley (1843-1901): 25th US president; he was assassinated by an anarchist
• Paddy Chayefsky (1923-1981): award-winning playwright, Network; also, writers Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Romain Rolland (1866-1944) and Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
• Tom Selleck (66): screen actor, Magnum, P.I., Blue Bloods; also, actors W.C. Fields (1880-1946), John Forsythe (1918-2010), Noel Harrison (77), Katharine Ross (71), Marc Singer (63), Ann Jillian (61), Nicholas Turturro (49), Edward Burns (43), Heather Graham (41) and Sara Gilbert (36)
• Oprah Winfrey (57): TV's most influential talk-show host
• Greg Louganis (51): champion diver; won the gold even after severely injuring his head in a previous dive in the '88 Olympics