Wednesday, January 2, 2018

counterblast \koun-ter-blast\, noun:

• An unrestrained and vigorously powerful response to an attacking statement.

Counterblast, predictably, comes from the roots "counter" and "blast." It came into common English usage in the 1560s. The prefix counter- originates in the Latin word contrā which meant "against, to return." Blast, on the other hand, originates in Old English, from the word blǽst, which meant "to blow."

 

Reminder Storm

• When everyone sitting around you in an office has the same appointment and you hear everyoneâs cell phone reminder for that appointment go off at the approximately the same time.

I was walking by finance when a reminder storm hit.

History

• Granada: last Moorish stronghold in Spain, led by Muhammad XI, surrendered to Roman Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I (1492)
• Vulcan: the "discovery" of a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury was announced by French mathematician Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier; it proved to be nonexistent (1860)
• Russo-Japanese War: ended with Russian General Stoessel's letter of surrender to Japan's General Nogi (1905)
• 55 mph limit: Congress and President Richard Nixon set a national speed limit to conserve gasoline following the 1973 oil crisis (1974)

Birthdays

• Nathaniel Bacon 1647
• Philip Freneau 1752
• Martha Thomas 1857
• Sally Rand 1904
• James Melton 1904
• Sir Michael Tippett 1905
• Vera Zorina (Eva Hartwig) 1917
• Isaac Asimov 1920
• Renata Tebaldi 1922
• Anna Lee 1923
• Jason Evers 1927
• Gino Marchetti 1927
• Julius LaRosa 1930
• Roger Miller 1936
• Jim Bakker 1939
• Donald B. Keck 1941
• Christopher Durang 1949
• Chick Churchill (Ten Years After) 1949
• Wendy Phillips 1952
• Joanna Pacula 1957
• Gabrielle Carteris 1961
• Todd Haynes 1961
• Tia Carrere 1967 
• Cuba Gooding, Jr. 1968
• Christy Turlington 1969
• Taye Diggs 1971
• Paz Vega 1976
• Kate Bosworth 1983