Wednesday, January 5, 2011

prevaricate \prih-VAIR-uh-kayt\, intransitive verb:

• To depart from or evade the truth; to speak with equivocation.

Prevaricate derives from the past participle of Latin praevaricari, "to pass in front of, or over, by straddling; to walk crookedly; to collude," from prae, "before, in front of" + varicare, "to straddle," from varicus, "straddling," from varus, "bent."

New Year's Block

• A condition that usually takes place the first couple of weeks into the new year, in which a person keeps writing in the last/previous year in place of the new one.

-doggonit! this is my third check today I write in the "old" year! -I know, you're not alone! I guess I got new year's block too, sorry to say.

Trivia

At what temperature are the readings on both Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers exactly the same?

• −40°.

History

• x-rays: discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen was announced; though their exact nature was unknown to him (hence the name), the achievement won him the first Nobel Prize in Physics (1896)
• minimum wage: Henry Ford instituted the first minimum wage; he paid his employees at least $5 a day (1914)
• Fair Deal: newly reelected president Harry S. Truman coined the phrase to refer to a 21-point program he sent to Congress in 1945, focusing on civil rights and social welfare (1949)
• Prague Spring: a brief period of reform began in Czechoslovakia; it ended later in the year with a Soviet invasion (1968)
• Eris: largest dwarf planet was discovered (2005)

Birthdays

• Kylie Bax (36): model, actress
• Alvin Ailey (1931-1989): dancer/choreographer
• Umberto Eco (79): semiotician who wrote The Name of the Rose
• Chuck Noll (79): former NFL player and coach who won more Super Bowls than any head coach in NFL history; other hall-of-famers born on this date are Lou Carnesecca (86) and Alex English (57)
• King Juan Carlos (73): Spanish king; other world leaders born on this date include Shah Jahan (1592-1666), Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928-1979) and Walter Mondale (83)
• Charlie Rose (69): broadcast journalist
• Bradley Cooper (36): hunky actor, The Hangover; also, actors Constantin Stanislavsky (1863 NS -1938), Robert Duvall (80), Diane Keaton (65), Pamela Sue Martin (58), Clancy Brown (52) and January Jones (33)
• Marilyn Manson (42): musician