Saturday, August 8, 2026

*8*8*

droke \ drohk \ , noun;

1. Canadian (chiefly Atlantic Provinces and Northwest Territories). 
2. a valley with steeply sloping sides. 

Origin: Droke is a Canadian dialectic term that has been used since the late 1700s.

 

chairdrobe

• The art of piling clothes on a chair to be used in place of a closet or dresser. If a chair is not available one can always defer to a floordrobe.

I searched through my chairdrobe to find my outfit for work.

History

• Mont Blanc: the tallest Alp was summited for the first time, by Frenchmen Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard (1786)
• mimeograph: was patented by Thomas A. Edison (1876)
• Great Train Robbery: 15 thieves stole more than £2m. from a London-bound traveling post office after stopping the train with a false red signal in Buckinghamshire (1963)
• Richard Nixon: announced his resignation from the presidency in the wake of Watergate, six years to the day after he was nominated by the Republican Party (1974)

Birthdays

• Matthew Henson 1866 - Explorer, along with Robert Peary and their Eskimo guide, were the first people to reach the North Pole

  
• Fredric March 1897
• Russel Markert 1899
• Benny Carter 1907
• Sylvia Sidney 1910
• Rosetta LeNoire 1911
• Dino DeLaurentis 1919
• Rory Calhoun 1922
• Esther Williams 1923
• Jimmy Witherspoon 1923
• Webb Pierce 1926
• Urbie Green 1926
• Richard Anderson 1926
• Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer 1927
• 
  Nita Talbot 1930
• Jerry Tarkanian 1930
• Mel Tillis 1932
• Joe Tex 1933
• Frank Howard (MLB) 1936
• Dustin Hoffman 1937
• Connie Stevens 1938
• Phil Balsley (The Statler Brothers) 1939
• John David (Dr. Hook) 1942
• Peter Weir 1944
• Larry Wilcox 1944
• Keith Carradine 1949
• Airrion Love (The Stylistics) 1949
• Jamie O'Hara 1950
• Fairweather-Low (Amen Corner) 1950
• Randy Shilts 1951
• Robin Quivers 1952

  
• Donny Most 1953
• Ali Score (A Flock of Seagulls) 1956
• Dennis Drew (10,000 Maniacs) 1957
• Harry Crosby 1958
• Deborah Norville 1958
• Chris Foreman (Madness) 1958
• Rikki Rockett (Poison) 1961
• "The Edge" David Evans (U2) 1961
• Kool Moe Dee 1962
• Brett Hull (NHL) 1964
• Mark Wills 1973
• Scott Alan Stapp 1973 - Singer (Creed)
• Tom Linton (Jimmy Eat World) 1975
• JC Chasez ('N Sync) 1976
• Drew Lachey (98 Degrees) 1976
• Marsha Ambrosius (Floetry) 1977
• Countess Vaughn 1978
• Odie (from Garfield comic) 1978
• Meagan Good 1981
• Peyton List 1986 - actress (Picard)
  
  Beatrice Elizabeth Mary 1988

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  

  

 

  

 

   

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

arsy-varsy \ AHR-see-VAHR-see \ , adjective; 

• Informal . wrong end foremost; completely backward: an arsy-varsy way of doing things . 

adverb: 

• Informal . in a backward or thoroughly mixed-up fashion: The papers are all filed arsy-varsy . 

Origin: This term first came to English in the 1530s. It is probably an alteration of the Latin vice versa with arse substituted to make a facetious rhyming compound. 

making base contact

• Making Base Contact; "saying" meaning contacting your wife, girlfriend, or serious female relationship via your cellular phone, just like as paramedics make base contact to get additional orders for patient care, one can give ones female an updated status on what the boys and yourself are doing.

you: hey guys so are we getting ready to head to the bar now?
friends: yeah sure were leaving in ten, can't wait to get smashed!!
you: sounds great lemme just go "make base contact" first
ORyou: great if you leave any sooner Ill be over by the garage "making base contact"
 

History 

• federal income tax: was levied for the first time in the US; it aimed to help pay the bills for the Civil War and was rescinded in 1872 (1861)
• "Damn the torpedoes": famous order was given by Union Admiral David G. Farragut as he led his fleet at Mobile Bay during the Civil War (1864)
• Little Orphan Annie: Harold Gray's comic strip debuted (1924)
• Nelson Mandela: South African resistance leader and later president was arrested and jailed; his imprisonment lasted till 1990 (1962)
• Marilyn Monroe: was found dead after overdosing on sleeping pills (1962)
• Test Ban Treaty: the US, Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to prohibit nuclear weapon tests underwater, in the atmosphere and in outer space (1963)

Birthdays

• Guy DeMaupassant 1850
• Conrad Aiken 1889
• Andrew Alford 1904
• John Huston 1906
  
• Robert Taylor 1911
• David Brian 1914
• Jeri Southern 1926
• Richie Ginterh 1930
• Neil A. Armstrong 1930
• Vern Gosdin 1934
• Cammie King 1934
• John Saxon 1935
• Zakes Mokae 1935
• 
  Damita Jo 1940
• Bobby Braddock 1940
• Rick Huxley (Dave Clark Five) 1942
• Sammi Smith 1943
• Jimmy Webb 1946
• Erika Slezak 1946
• Loni Anderson 1946
• Greg Leskiw (Guess Who) 1947
• Rick Derringer 1947
• Holly Palance 1950
• Samantha Sang 1953
• 
  Maureen McCormick 1956
• Pat Smear (Foo Fighters) 1959
• Pete Burns (Dead Or Alive) 1959
• Mark O'Connor 1961
• Tawny Kitaen 1961
• Patrick Ewing 1962
• Adam Yauch (M.C.A. of the Beastie Boys) 1964
• Elvis Duran 1964
• Jonathon Silverman 1966
• Terri Clark 1968
• Brendon Ryan Barrett 1986
• Xenia Tchoumitcheva (model / blogger) 1987 
• Jessica Nigri (cosplayer) 1989 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

hokum \ HOH-kuhm \ , noun; 

1. out-and-out nonsense; bunkum.
2. elements of low comedy introduced into a play, novel, etc., for the laughs they may bring. 
3. sentimental matter of an elementary or stereotyped kind introduced into a play or the like. 
4. false or irrelevant material introduced into a speech, essay, etc., in order to arouse interest, excitement, or amusement. 

Origin: Hokum emerged as theater slang in the US in the early 1900s and is thought to be a blend of hocus-pocus and bunkum. 

Helicopter Girlfriend

• A hovering, slightly neurotic, but well-meaning, girlfriend who gets way too involved in her partner's day to day activities to the point of interfering with their activities and choices.

She is a total helicopter girlfriend who always makes everyone else stop talking to announce her boyfriend is about to say something.

 

wog { /wäg/ (n.) offensive slang. 1925-30, from 'Golliwogg': a 19th century blackface doll; or alternately, an acronym of '(W)orthy (O)riental (G)entleman' } 

British English: 

1. *racist* a black African or dark-skinned South Asian (usually Indian or Pakistani)
2. *Anglocentric* a non-Briton or non-Englishman: "The wogs start at Calais" (across the English Channel in France) -- British proverb

Australian English: 

1. a non-Anglo-Celtic European, esp. from Southern or Eastern Europe (e.g. Greek, Italian, Balkan, Slavic, etc.)
2. an Asian, esp. a West Asian (e.g. Lebanese, Turkish, Armenian, Iranian, etc.), but now also inclusive of South Asians and Pacific Islanders

USAGE: Until 1973 Australia had a white-only immigration policy, so the term used mainly as a racial slur in Britain was applied to ethnic European immigrants of the post-WWII "populate or perish" era. By now it has greatly lost its sting, and many ethnic Australians have reclaimed it as a jocular term, with some cleverly riffing on it (e.g. 'clog wog' for a Dutchman, 'frog wog' for a Frenchman). Since the 70s, the wog label has been extended to include newer immigrants arriving from the Middle East and other parts of Asia, and many have come to identify strongly with it, facing resistance from more assimilated European wogs who harbor racist and anti-Muslim attitudes. The term is almost completely unknown in the United States and Canada, but in Britain it remains extremely offensive, somewhat akin to 'nigger'.

 

History

• margarine: Hippolyte Mège Mouriés got a patent for the butter substitute in France (1869)
• Reconstruction: Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union after the American Civil War (1870)
• Second Battle of the Marne: World War I fight began; the Allies' victory halted the German advance toward Paris (1918)
• MSNBC: the 24-hour all-news network debuted on cable TV and the Internet (1996)
• the Mozilla Foundation: was founded to govern development of the open source Mozilla project; it's the creator of the Firefox browser and other web products (2003)

Birthdays

• Rembrandt Van Rijn 1606
• Clement Clarke Moore 1779
• William Winter 1836
• Dorothy Fields 1905
• Richard W. Armour 1906
• Cowboy Copas 1913
• Philip Carey 1925
• Non Clow Martin 1927
• Clive Cussler 1931
• Julian Bream 1933
• Alex Karras 1935
• Ken Kercheval 1935
• Patrick Wayne 1939
• Tommy Dee 1940
• Millie Jackson 1944
• Jan-Michael Vincent 1944
• Peter Lewis 1945 - Musician (Moby Grape)
• Linda Ronstadt 1946
• Peter Banks 1947 - Musician (YES)
• Trevor Horn 1949 - Musician (Buggles, YES)
• Jesse Ventura 1951
• Rick Kehoe 1951
• Terry O'Quinn 1952 - Actor ("Lost")
• Jeff Carlisi 1952 - Musician (.38 Special)
• David Pack 1953 - Musician (Ambrosia)
• Joe Satriani 1956 - Musician
• Marc Bell 1956 - Musician (The Ramones)
• Ian Curtis 1956 - Musician (Joy Division)
• Kim Alexis 1960
• William Aames 1960
  
• Forest Whitaker 1961
• Lolita Davidovich 1961
• Brigitte Nielsen 1963 - Actress
• Phillip Fisher 1967 - Musician (Fishbone)
• Stan Kirsch 1968
• Beth Ostrosky Stern 1972
• Scott Foley 1972
• Brian Austin Green 1973 (former Mr Megan Fox) 
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