Monday, April 25, 2016

sough \SAU; SUHF\, intransitive verb

• To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.

noun:

• A soft, low rustling or sighing sound.

Sough comes from Middle English swoughen, from Old English swogan.
 
intellectual masturbation

• Fascinating intellectual breakthroughs regarding reality, language, existence, knowledge, perception, or human behavior which are completely unprovable and utterly without use, and therefore of no real consequence to anyone. See also: philosophy

• Etymology: the mental counterpart to masturbation; i.e. a process that is very pleasurable but hasn't accomplished anything at the end.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that language influences human thought, so that native speakers of different languages think about concepts in incommensurably distinct modes. Linguists and psychologists contend fiercely over the validity of this claim, oblivious to the fact that it is intellectual masturbation.

Holiday

• World Penguin Day

History

• guillotine: highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier was beheaded in France's first public execution-by-guillotine (1792)
• Suez Canal: ground was broken on the waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea (1859)
• license plates: were required on cars in New York State — the first time in the US (1901)
• United Nations: delegates met in San Francisco to organize the international body (1945)
• double helix: in the magazine Nature, Francis Crick and James D. Watson published their "Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid," which described the structure of DNA (1953)

Birthdays

• Oliver Cromwell 1599 - English military and political leader
• Guglielmo Marconi 1874 - Italian inventor (radio telegraph system)
• Edward R. Murrow 1908 - American broadcast journalist
• Earl Bostic 1913 - Musician
• Sal Franzella 1915 - Musician
• Jerry Barber 1916 - Golfer
• Ella Fitzgerald 1918 - Vocalist, known as "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella"
• Robert Q. Lewis 1920 - Radio and television personality, game show host, actor
• Albert King 1923 - Musician
• Anita Bjorak 1923 - Actress
• Melissa Hayden 1923 - Dancer
• Vassar Clements 1928 - Musician
• Paul Mazursky 1930 - Actor, director
• Willis "Gator" Jackson 1932 - Saxaphonist
• Meadowlark Lemon 1932 - Basketball player, Harlem Globetrotters
• Jerry Leiber 1933 - Songwriter
• Anthony Lukas 1933 - Journalist, author
• Al Pacino 1940 - Actor
• Stu Cook 1945 - Musician (CCR)
• Bjorn Ulvaeus 1945 - Musician (Abba)
• Talia Shire 1946 - Actress ("The Godfather", "Rocky" film series)
• Jeffrey De Munn 1947 - Actor ("The Green Mile", "The Shawshank Redemption")
• Michael Brown 1949 - Musician (The Left Banke)
• Hank Azaria 1964 - Actor
• Andy Bell 1964 - Musician (Erasure)
• James Barbour 1965 - Actor, singer ("A Tale of Two Cities")
• Eric Avery 1965 - Musician (Jane's Addiction)
• Jane Clayson 1967 - Television host, journalist, author
• Renée Zellweger 1969 - Actress
• Jason Lee 1970 - Actor ("My Name is Earl")
• Emily Bergl 1975 - Actress ("The Rage: Carrie 2")
• Tim Duncan 1976 - Basketball player
• Sara Paxton 1988 - Actress