Tuesday, February 1, 2011

ambisinister \am-bi-SIN-uh-ster\, adjective:

• Clumsy or unskillful with both hands.

Ambisinister is a combination of the Latin roots Ambi-, "both," and sinister, "to the left side."

You're Probably Right

• A phrase used to dodge the blame and embarrassment associated with getting an answer wrong.

Jack: "I know that girl her name is Cindy"

Joe: "She's my neighbor, her name is Angela"

Jack: "You're probably right"

Trivia

Who was the first man to score the 20th-century hat trick of exploration—making it to both the North and South Poles and the summit of Mount Everest?

• New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary, who achieved fame as the first man to scale Everest (1953), led a tractor-riding expedition to the South Pole (1958), and landed at the North Pole in a ski plane piloted by American astronaut Neil Armstrong (1985).

History

• US Supreme Court: held its first session, in NY; John Jay, a Federalist Papers author, presided (1790)
• Oxford English Dictionary: first fascicle, A—Ant, was published (1884)
• Greensboro, NC: four black college students began a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter, where they'd been refused service (1960)
• Ayatollah Khomeini: returned to Tehran after some 15 years of exile; the Iranian Revolution turned the country into an Islamic republic soon after (1979)
• Columbia: space shuttle disintegrated on reentry, killing all seven astronauts aboard (2003)
• wardrobe malfunction: Janet Jackson, in a duet with Justin Timberlake, caused a stir at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show (2004)

Birthdays

• S.J. Perelman (1904-1979): humor writer for The New Yorker; also, novelist Dame Muriel Spark (1918-2006)
• Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007): former president of Russia
• Joe Sample (72): jazz pianist and composer; plus, musicians Rick James (1948-2004), Don Everly (74), Mike Campbell (61), Lisa Marie Presley (43), Joshua Redman (42), Big Boi (36) and Julie Roberts (32)
• Princess Stephanie of Monaco (46): youngest child of Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace
• Michael C. Hall (40): serial-killer star of Dexter: also, actors Clark Gable (1901-1960), Stuart Whitman (83), Garrett Morris (74), Sherman Hemsley (73), Sherilyn Fenn (46), Terry Jones (69), Pauly Shore (43), Brian Krause (42) and Lauren Conrad (25)