August 31: Short Letter Day

Today is the anniversary of a short letter that became the opening salvo in a chain of events that changed television history. The letter, dated August 31, 1988, was sent to NBC President Brandon Tartikoff by George Shapiro, agent for Jerry Seinfeld. This brief letter of recommendation led to a meeting between Seinfeld and NBC executives, and an eventual pilot called The Seinfeld Chronicles. That pilot then became one of television's most successful sitcoms Seinfeld running from 1990 to 1998.

With the popularity and longevity of Seinfeld, you might think success was assured for Jerry Seinfeld, but few people know that he was dropped from an earlier sitcom Benson in 1980 after appearing in three episodes (1).

Looking back at the text of the Shapiro's letter -- only three sentences long -- it's hard to believe it was the spark that set of a powder keg of comedy that dominated American TV ratings from nearly ten years.

Call me a crazy guy, but I feel that Jerry Seinfeld will soon be doing a series on NBC, and I thought you'd like to see this article from the current issue of People Magazine.

Jerry will be appearing in concert in New York City at Town Hall on Saturday, September 10. If any of you will be in New York at that time I'll be happy to arrange tickets for you and your guests.

When the show ended in 1998, it was still at the top of the ratings, and Jerry Seinfeld made it into The Guinness Book of World Records under the category "Most Money Refused" when he turned down an offer of $5 million dollars per episode to continue the show. In addition to ratings success, the sitcom also made an impact on American vernacular with catchphrases such as "Yada, Yada, Yada."

Seinfeld's Agent George Shapiro, who later became on of the show's executive producers, had the gift for writing a short but strong letter of recommendation for his client (2).

Unlike an email, a short letter is likely to get the attention of your audience. If you want something done or you want an answer to a question, a short letter is a great way to guarantee a response. However, unlike the sitcom Sienfeld you can't write a letter about nothing; you need a specific subject and purpose for your letter. Below are four important guidelines for a successful letter.

The Four S's of Business Letters:

Keep it Short
Cut needless words, needless information, stale phrases, and redundant statements.

Keep it Simple
Use familiar words, short sentences and short paragraphs. Keep it simple, and use a conversational style.

Keep it Strong
Answer the reader's question in the first paragraph, and explain why. Use concrete words and examples, and stick to the subject.

Keep it Sincere
Answer promptly, be friendly in tone, and try to write as if you were talking to your reader (3).

Today's Challenge: Short, Simple, Strong, and Sincere Snail Mail

Write a short letter to a specific person about a specific question or request. For an example of a letter and the seven things you should include in the format, see Word Daze August 3.

Quote of the Day: The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt. Look at it. It's too high. It's in no-man's land. You look like you live with your mother. --First line from the first episode of Seinfeld and the last line from the last episode. In both cases Jerry is speaking to George.

1- Jerry Seinfeld.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800082168/bio

2 - Grunwald, Lisa and Stephan J. Adler (Editors). Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999. New York: The Dial Press, 1999.

3. Business Letter Writing - Business Letter Writing Checklist
http://www.business-letter-writing.com/writing-a-business-letter-examples/business-letter-checklist.html

August 30: Top Ten Day

Today is the anniversary of the The Late Show with David Letterman which premiered on CBS on August 30, 1993. Letterman had previously spent eleven years as the host of Late Night with David Letterman, but after he was passed over as the host of the The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson retired, he signed a multi-million dollar deal to move to CBS. This put him in direct competition with Jay Leno, who took over for Johnny on The Tonight Show.

Many aspects of Letterman's show follow the basic pattern of the late night talk show genre, established and perfected by Johnny Carson. Letterman has added a few new wrinkles of his own that have become staples of his show and focus points for his fans.

One of Letterman's trademarks is "found comedy": people, places, and things found on the streets of the city that become the subject of Letterman's ironic wit. These consist of actual items found in the newspaper, viewer mail, "stupid pet and human tricks" performed on the show, esoteric videos, or person on the street interviews (1).

But perhaps Letterman's best know feature is his nightly Top Ten List. Based on a topic from current events, each list counts down ten hilariously warped responses. The very first list, for example, featured TOP TEN WORDS THAT RHYME WITH "PEAS":

10. Heats
9. Rice
8. Moss
7. Ties
6. Needs
5. Lens
4. Ice
3. Nurse
2. Leaks
1. Meats

While this was probably not the funniest top ten list, it is interesting to note that the Top Ten began on a poetic note.

Today's Challenge: TOP TEN TOP TENS
Below are some of the list topics from David Letterman's first book of Top Ten Lists. Select one of the topics and try your hand at comedy writing. Visit the Top Ten List Archive for inspiration. You can also create your own topic and list, or visit The CBS Lateshow with David Letterman website and enter the weekly Top Ten List Contest.

1. Top Ten Ways Life Would Be Better If Dogs Ran The World
2. Top Ten Ways To Pronounce "Bologna"
3. Top Ten Unsafe Toys for Christmas
4. Top Ten Prom Themes
5. Top Ten Questions Science Cannot Answer
6. Top Ten Things We As Americans Can Be Proud Of
7. Top Ten Interview Questions Asked Miss America Contestants
8. Top Ten Reasons To Vote
9. Top Ten Reasons Why TV Is Better Than Books
10. Top Ten Rejected Provisions Of The U.S. Constitution

Quote of the Day: Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?
1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
2) Advising the President.
3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.
--David Letterman

1 - LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN. The Museum of Broadcast Communications
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/L/htmlL/latenightwi/latenightwi.htm

2 - Letterman, David and the "Late Night with David Letterman Writers. The Late Night With David Letterman Book of Top Ten Lists. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.

August 29: Akeelah and the Bee Day

Today marks the DVD release of the film Akeelah and the Bee. This 2006 film is a drama about 11 year-old Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) who overcomes personal struggles to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Directed by Doug Atchison, the film stars Laurence Fishburn as Dr. Larabee, an English professor who coaches Akeelah.

The film is an off-shoot of the 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary and surprise hit Spellbound, which profiled a number of the competitors in the National Spelling Bee. After the success of Spellbound, the Scripps National Spelling Bee was broadcast on network television for the first time in May 2005. The growing popularity of spelling has even entered the adult world with spelling competitions in bars around the country and even a senior national spelling bee sponsored by the AARP.

In addition, in 2005 the film Bee Season was released, and spelling even hit Broadway with the 2005 musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Today's Challenge: Prize Winning Bees
The eight words below are the winning words for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee for the years 1998-2005. See if you can match up each word with its definition.

prospicience

logorrhea

succedaneum

demarche

chiaroscurist

appoggiatura

autochthonous

pococurante


1. 2005: grace note: an embellishing note usually written in smaller size.

2. 2004: of rocks, deposits, etc.; found where they and their constituents were formed.

3. 2003: Indifferent; apathetic.

4. 2002: prevision: seeing ahead; knowing in advance; foreseeing.

5. 2001: (medicine) something that can be used as a substitute (especially any medicine that may be taken in place of another.

6. 2000: a move or step or maneuver in political or diplomatic affairs.

7. 1999: pathologically excessive (and often incoherent) talking

8. 1998: a painter who cares for and studies light and shade rather than color (2, 3).

Quote of the Day: They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce. --Mark Twain

Answers: 1. apoggiatura 2. autochthonous 3. pococurante 4. prospicience 5. succedaneum 6. demarche 7 logorrhea 8. chiaroscurist

1 - http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17112481&BRD=1142&PAG=461&dept_id=568956&rfi=6

2 - http://www.spellingbee.com/bwg/statschamp.shtml

3 - wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

August 28: Anaphora Day

Today is the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his unforgettable I Have a Dream speech to the crowd of roughly 250,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial (1).

Early in his speech King invokes Lincoln and the unfulfilled promise of the Emancipation Proclamation:

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free (2).

King went on to cite two other vital American documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Using the metaphor of a bad check, King argued that the United States would not be a truly free nation, until it fulfilled these promissory notes for all of its citizens, ending segregation, "withering injustice," and the persecution of black Americans.

An ordained Baptist Minister and a doctor of theology, King new how to craft a sermon and how to deliver a speech. His choice of nonviolent protest meant that his words and his rhetoric would determine the success of failure of his civil rights mission. King was up to the task. There is probably no more telling example of the power of words to persuade, motivate, and change the course of history than the speech King delivered on August 28, 1963.

Rhetoric is the use of language to persuade. Aristotle defined it as "the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion." Martin Luther King, Jr. used many of these "means of persuasion" (also known as rhetorical devices) to persuade his audience. He used metaphor: beacon of hope and manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. He used alliteration: dark and desolate, sweltering summer, and Jews and Gentiles. He used antithesis: will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

But more than any other device, King used repetition and anaphora, the repetition of one or more words at the beginning of a phrase or clause.

Certain words echo throughout his speech. Unlike redundancy, this repetition is intentional. These words ring like bell, repeatedly reminding the listener of key themes. In the I Have a Dream speech the words justice and dream both ring out eleven times. But one word is repeated far more than any other; the word freedom tolls 20 times. In King's dream there is no crack in the Liberty Bell; instead, it rings out loudly and clearly, a triumphant declaration that American has finally lived up to its potential.

Anaphora comes from the Greek meaning "I repeat." It's the kind of repetition at the beginning of a line or a sentence that you see in the Psalms or in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

(Matthew 3:3-6 King James Version)

King uses anaphora for six different phrases that echo throughout his speech:

One hundred years later . . .

We refuse to believe . . .

Now is the time . . .

With this faith . . .

I have a dream . . .

Let freedom ring . . . (3)

King also chose one of these examples of anaphora as the title of his speech. The repeated clause I have a dream comes at the climactic moment in the speech which is probably why it is the most frequently quoted part:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together (2).

Today's Challenge: Three-Peat After Me
Sometimes writers repeat the same word in succession to get the reader's attention. In each of the following quotes, the same word is repeated three times. See if you can guess each word.

1. There are three things which the public will always clamor for, sooner or later: namely, ________, _______, and _______. --Thomas Hood

2. Three things in human life are important. The first is to be _____. The second is to be _____. And the third is to be _____. -- Henry James

3. To succeed as a conjurer, three things are essential -- first, _______; second, _______, and once again _______. --Gian Giacomo Di Trivulzio

4. Dancing is just ________, ________, _______.

5. Three things make you a winner in business: _______, _______. And, of course, _______. --Harry Benson

6. The world rests on three things: _______, _______, and _______.

Quote of the Day: Have no unreasonable fear of repetition. . . . The story is told of a feature writer who was doing a piece on the United Fruit Company. He spoke of bananas once; he spoke of bananas twice; he spoke of bananas yet a third time, and now he was desperate. "The world's leading shippers of the elongated yellow fruit," he wrote. A fourth banana would have been better. --James J. Kilpatrick

Answers: 1. scandal 2. kind 3. courage 4. practice 5. sales 6. love

1 - Nammour, Chris. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Online Newshour Posted: 8/27/03
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/march_8-27.html

2 - King, Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream"
http://www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html

3 - http://www.speaklikeapro.co.uk/MLK_dream.htm

August 27: New Words From the Workplace Day

On this date in 1984, a new word appeared in an article entitled "The New Baby Boom" published in the Washington Post. The word was flexplace, meaning a company policy that enables employees to work either at the office or from home (1).


Flexplace is just one example of the many neologisms, new words, that emerged and continue to emerge from the constantly evolving workplace. Flexplace is the offspring of an earlier neologism flextime (also flexitime) which appeared in print in 1972 to describe working conditions in which employees could vary their starting and finishing times as long as they worked the contracted number of hours in a week. As early as 1974 Economist magazine forcasted the technological explosion that would allow office staff to work from home. The word used here was telecommute: "As there is no logical reason why the cost of telecommunications should vary with distance, quite a lot of people by the late 1980s will telecommute daily to their London offices while living on a Pacific island if they want" (2).


The radical changes in the workplace over the last thirty years have spawned all manner of neologisms. A prime source for tracking these changes is the book and website called Word Spy. Founded by Paul McFedries, Word Spy searches out new words and phrases that have appeared in published sources multiple times. These neologisms are candidates for the dictionary. They won't all make it; nevertheless, these linguistic new kids on the block have their moment in the sun, used by people trying to communicate with each other in clear and concise ways about emerging ideas and new trends. In the book Word Spy, McFedries uses an excellent analogy to describe the volatile nature of the English language:


I view language not a solid mountain to be admired from afar, but rather an active volcano to be studied up close. This volcano is constantly spewing out new words and phrases; some of them are mere ash and smoke that are blown away by the winds; others are linguistic lava that slides down the volcano and eventually hardens as a permanent part of the language. But although volcanoes have periods of intense activity followed by periods of inactivity, word creation never stops (3).


Today's Challenge: Words at Work

The 8 words below are workplace neologisms being watched by Word Spy. See if you can match up the term with its definition.


modem cowboy/cowgirl

hot desk

corporate concierge

hotelling

touchdown center

virtual manager

to office

placemaking



1. noun. An employee whose job entails performing the personal tasks—such as making dinner reservations and taking in dry cleaning—of other employees who have no time to do these things themselves.


2. verb. To perform office-related tasks, such as photocopying and faxing.


3. present participle. An office setup in which mobile workers do not have permanent desks or cubicles and so must reserve a workspace when they come into the office.


4. noun. A person who lives and works out of a home located in the country.


5. noun. A desk that is not assigned to a particular employee, but rather is available for use and can be reserved in advance by a mobile worker whenever they are required to be in the office.


6. noun. A facility where business travelers can make calls, plug in their notebook computers, and connect to the Internet.


7. present participle. Designing a building or area to make it more attractive to and compatible with the people who use it.


8. noun A manager who directs employees from a remote location such as home or a central office.


Quote of the Day: The rapidity with which new verbs are made in the United States is really quite amazing. Two days after the first regulations of the Food Administration were announced, "to hooverize" appeared spontaneously in scores of newspapers, and a week later it was employed without any visible sense of its novelty in the debates of Congress. —H. L. Mencken



Answers: 1. corporate concierge 2. to office 3. hotelling 4. modem cowboy/cowgirl 5. hot desk 6. touchdown center 7. placemaking 8. virtual manager



1. http://www.wordspy.com/words/flexplace.asp



2. Ayto, John. Twentieth Century Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999.



3. Paul McFedries. Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.

August 26: Will Shortz Day

Today is the birthday of Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The New York Times.

Shortz was born in 1952 in Indiana and attended Indiana University, studying Enigmatology, the study of puzzles. To earn his degree, Shortz had to persuade his professors that puzzles were a legitimate course of study. Once he got the go ahead, he then designed his own curriculum. Completing his degree in 1974, is the only person in the world with a degree in the field.

Shortz's studies did not go to waste. He is the former editor of Games magazine and the current director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which he founded in 1978. In addition to his work with The New York Times, Shortz has been heard each week on National Public Radio stations since 1987, where he is known as the Puzzle-Master (1).

On June 16, 2006 a documentary called Wordplay profiled Shortz and his passion for crossword puzzles.

The following synopsis of the film is from the Wordplay movie site:

WORDPLAY focuses on the man most associated with crossword puzzles, New York Times puzzle editor and NPR puzzle-master Will Shortz. Director Patrick Creadon introduces us to this passionate hero, and to the inner workings of his brilliant and often hilarious contributors, including syndicated puzzle creator Merl Reagle.

Along the way, the film presents interviews with celebrity crossword puzzlers such as Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Mike Mussina and the Indigo Girls, who reveal their process, insight and the allure of the game. In addition to deconstructing this uniquely American institution, Wordplay takes us though the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament where almost five hundred competitors battled it out for the title “Crossword Champ” and showed their true colors along the way (1).

Today's Challenge: Crosswords Shortz-cuts
Below are definitions of words that commonly appear in crossword puzzles, but they are not necessarily common in everyday speech. Given the clues below, see if you can come up with the words.

1. 4 letters: A solo vocal piece with instrumental accompaniment, as in an opera.

2. 5 letters: The main trunk of the systemic arteries carrying blood from the left side of the heart to the arteries of all limbs and organs except the lungs.

3. 3 letters; A gradual decline or the outward flow of the tide.

4. 4 letters: A mild, yellow Dutch cheese, pressed into balls and usually covered with red wax.

5. 5 letters: Any of several large sea ducks especially of the genus Somateria of northern regions, having soft, commercially valuable down and predominantly black and white plumage in the male.

6. 3 letters: An indefinitely long period of time; an age.

7. 4 letters: A fencing sword with a bowl-shaped guard and a long, narrow fluted blade that has no cutting edge or tapers to a blunted point.

8. 3 letters: A female sheep, especially when full grown.

9. 4 letters: A pitcher, especially a decorative one with a base, an oval body, and a flaring spout.

10. 4 letters: A very small amount; a bit.



11. 3 letters: Yen: A strong desire or inclination; a yearning or craving (1).

Quote of the Day: We try to do a Shakespeare play every year, because I feel that it provides the best tool for actor training. It's challenging in performance and language, physicality, analytical skills, and this particular one is along the serious lines, which seemed to fit the bill in terms of the kind of genre we wanted to explore. I call this the Sunday Times Crossword Puzzle for actors. --Jack Cirillo

Answers: 1. aria 2. aorta 3. ebb 4. edam 5. eider 6. eon 7. epee 8. ewe 9. ewer 10. iota 11. yen

1 - "Will Shortz Biography." NPR.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=2101852



2 - http://www.wordplaythemovie.com/.

August 24: Weather Words Day

Today is the anniversary of an editorial by Charles Dudley Warner published in the Hartford Courant in 1897. The subject of the editorial is long forgotten, but one quote from the article lives on as a famous quote: Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Although many credit Warner with the funny line, some argue that it really should be credited to Mark Twain, who was a friend and collaborator with Charles Dudley Warner. Ralph Keyes, the author of The Quote Verifier, comes down on Twain's side, saying that the wording of the editorial reveals that Warner got the quote from Twain: "A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it" (1).

Weather or not Twain said it (pun intended), there is no doubt that weather has rained down on the English lexicon. Many of our everyday idioms are weather related (see Word Daze March 23), and some of our common words have meteorological origins:

Astonish: Being struck by thunder would certainly be an astonishing experience. This word comes to English via the French estoner which in turn was derived from Latin ex = out + tonare = to thunder. Thus the literal translation of astonish is thunderstruck.

Window: This word comes from the Norse vindauge which comes from vindr = wind + auga = eye. Thus a window is an eye for the wind.

Lunatic: For centuries people have considered the effects of the moon on the weather and the varying moods of earthlings. Because the moon does affect ocean tides, it does have an indirect impact on the weather. There is less evidence, however, to prove the moon's relationship to the human psyche. Nevertheless the word lunatic is derived from Luna the moon goddess, who in myth would sometimes toy with the sanity of mortals.

Today's Challenge: Forecast Calls for Neologisms
The nouns below probably do not look familiar. They are all neologisms, new words that have appeared in print but that are not yet in the dictionary. See if you can match up the words with their definitions below. For more details on each word visit Word Spy, a site devoted to neologisms.

geomythology

weather tourist

weather bomb

megacryometeor

gigantic jet

tornado bait

space weather

season creep

1. Earlier spring weather and other gradual seasonal shifts, particularly those caused by global climate change.

2. A person whose vacation consists of tracking down and observing tornadoes, hurricanes, and other severe weather phenomena.

3. A massive and powerful storm that develops quickly and without warning.

4. One or more mobile homes or trailers, especially when located in or near a tornado zone.

5. A massive lightning flash that extends from the top of a thundercloud up to the ionosphere.

6. Electrical storms generated when the solar wind emitted by the sun interacts with the Earth's magnetic field. Also: space-weather.

7. A large chunk of ice that forms in the atmosphere and falls to the ground.

8. The study of past earthquakes, volcanoes, and other geological events that combines the analysis of both physical evidence and the myths and legends related to the events.

Quote of the Day: To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. --George Santayana

Answers: 1. season creep 2. weather tourist 3. weather bomb 4. tornado bait 5. gigantic jet 6. space weather 7. megacryometeor 8. geomythology

1 - Keyes, Ralph. The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2006.

2 - Funk, Wilfred. Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950.

3 - http://www.wordspy.com/index/Science-Weather.asp

August 23: First Lady Day

Today is the anniversary of a letter sent by First Lady Dolley Madison (1768-1849) to her sister on August 23, 1814, the eve of the burning of the White House by invading British troops during the War of 1812. The letter is of particular interest to historians as it details First Lady Madison's efforts to save important presidential papers and a full-length portrait of George Washington, by artist Gilbert Stuart.

Some historians doubt the authenticity of the letter's date, saying is was probably written 20 years later; nevertheless, they do not dispute the facts of the letter, particularly First Lady Madison's intrepid efforts to save Washington's portrait:

Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping.

No original of the letter exists; however, the full text of the letter can be read at the web site of The White House Historical Association.

Dolley Madison first came to Washington, D.C., when her husband was appointed Secretary of State under President Jefferson. She gained a reputation as a charming hostess, frequently entertaining large gatherings at the White House. In fact, the night she left the White House, the dinner table was set for 40 guests.

The expansion of hostilities in the War of 1812 made it necessary for Dolley to finally flee the White House. The U.S. had declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812. The first years of the war were confined to Canada, the Great Lakes, and the high seas, but after Great Britain's victory over Napoleon in April 1814, the British focused more of their forces against the U.S. After defeating the Americans at Bladensburg, Maryland, the British advanced toward Washington.

The night after Madison had penned the letter to her sister and fled the White House to safety, the British arrived. After consuming the meal that had been prepared for American military and cabinet officers, the British soldiers looted and set fire to the White House.

The war continued for a few months until February 17, 1815 when the United States declared victory and ratified the Treaty of Ghent. President James Madison and his wife never lived in the White House again, but they did dedicate themselves to its reconstruction and the reconstruction of other governmental buildings destroyed in the war. in 1817 President James Monroe moved into a restored White House.

Today's Challenge: All the Presidents' Wives
Dolley Madison is not the only First Lady of note. Below are ten quotes by the wives of U.S. Presidents. See if you can identify the speaker of each quote.

1. Just say no to drugs!

2. I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

3. I may be the only mother in America who knows exactly what their child is up to all the time.

4. The power of a book lies in its power to turn a solitary act into a shared vision. As long as we have books, we are not alone.

5. The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person - her husband.

6. I have sacrificed everything in my life that I consider precious to advance the political career of my husband.

7. I'm not some Tammy Wynette standing by my man.

8. If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.

Quote of the Day: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. --Eleanor Roosevelt

Answers: 1. Nancy Reagan 2. Eleanor Roosevelt 3. Barbara Bush 4. Laura Bush 5. Lady Bird Johnson 6. Pat Nixon 7. Hillary Clinton 8. Jackie Kennedy

1 - The White House Historical Association - Classroom
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/04/subs/04_b_1812.html

August 22: Ray Bradbury Day

Today is the birthday of Ray Bradbury, the American writer best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. He was born in Illinois in 1920 and later moved to Los Angeles where he graduated high school in 1938. After high school he educated himself, spending long hours roaming the stacks in the public library.

He began writing full time in 1943, publishing a number of short stories in various periodicals. His first success came in 1950 when he published The Martian Chronicles, a novel made up of a number of Bradbury's short stories about the human colonization of Mars (1).

In 1953, he published his most popular and critically acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451, a story about a dark future in which books are illegal, and instead of putting out fires, firemen answer calls to burn illegal caches of books. The main character is one of these firemen, Guy Montag. Instead of reading, the general public immerse themselves in pleasure, watching television screens that take up three of the four walls in their homes and listening to seashell radios that fit in their ears. Like Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984, Guy Montag begins to question his job and the entire status quo of the society in which he lives. He begins to become curious about the books he's burning. However Montag's curiosity and his books betray him, and the firemen one day arrive to burn his home and his books.

Montag flees the city and comes upon a group of educated but homeless men who each memorize a great work of literature or philosophy. When the time comes to return to the city and rebuild civilization from the ashes of burned books, these men will be ready to play their part. Montag will join them with his book, Ecclesiastes.

Bradbury published over 30 books, almost 600 short stories, as well as a number of poems, essays, and plays. Along with Fahrenheit 451, his most read book, his short stores are published in numerous anthologies and textbooks.

Fahrenheit 451 began as a short story called "The Fireman" published in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine in 1950. Bradbury's publisher then asked him to expand the story into a novel in 1953. The first draft of the novel was completed in a typing room located in the basement of the University of California Library. The typewriter was on a timer connected to a change slot. For one dime Bradbury got thirty minutes of typing. (He spent $9.80 to complete the first draft).

When he wasn't typing furiously against the clock, Bradbury would go upstairs to explore the library:

There I strolled, lost in love, down the corridors, and through the stacks, touching books, pulling volumes out, turning pages, thrusting volumes back, drowning in all the good stuffs that are the essence of the libraries. What a place, don't you agree, to write a novel about burning books in the Future.

Bradbury had more than just a love affair with books. For him they are the backbone of civilization as illustrated by a statement he made in an interview published in the 50th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451:

Let's imagine there's an earthquake tomorrow in the average university town. If only two buildings remained intact at the end of the earthquake, what would they have to be in order to rebuild everything that had been lost? Number one would be the medical building, because you need that to help people survive, to heal injuries and sickness. The other building would be the library. All the other buildings are contained in that one. People could go into the library and get all the books they needed in literature or social economics or politics or engineering and take the books out on the lawn and sit down and read. Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization (2).

It's no wonder that one of Bradbury's most famous quotes is: There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Today's Challenge: Words on Fire
Every love affair with books begins with a love affair with words. The list of 10 words below are all found in Fahrenheit 451. See if you can match each word with its correct definition.

cacophony
tactile
olfactory
litterateur
scythe
filigree
cadence
oblivion
verbiage
teem

1. To be full of things; to swarm.
2. Harsh, jarring sound; noise.
3. Related to the sense of touch.
4. Someone devoted to the study of literature.
5. The state of being forgotten.
6. Excess words.
7. Delicate, ornamental work made from twisted wire of gold or silver.
8. Rhythmic; expressive.
9. A bladed toll with a long bent handle, used for cutting or mowing.
10. Related to the sense of smell (3).

Quote of the Day: The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little. --Ray Bradbury

Answers: 1. teem 2. cacophony 3. tactile 4. litterateur 5. oblivion 6. verbiage 7. filigree 8. cadence 9. scythe 10. olfactory

1- About Ray Bradbury
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html

2 - Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. The 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Random House.

3. Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary List.
http://www.monmouth.com/~literature/f451/fahrenheit_451_vocabulary_list.htm

Hawaii 5-0 Day

Today is the anniversary of the date that Hawaii became the fiftieth state of the Union. President Dwight D. Eisenhower presided over a White House ceremony welcoming the Aloha State on August 21, 1959. The following is an excerpt from the New York Times story on Hawaii statehood:

Hawaii Becomes the 50th State; New Flag Shown

Washington, Aug. 21, 1959 -- Hawaii was officially proclaimed as the fiftieth state of the United States today by President Eisenhower at bipartisan White House ceremonies.

The Presidential action was followed immediately by the unfurling of a new fifty-star flag, which will not become official until next July 4. The thirteen alternate red and white stripes remain unchanged, but the stars on a field of blue are arranged in nine alternate staggered rows of six and five stars each.

The President welcomed the new state along with Alaska, admitted earlier this year. Not since 1912, when Arizona and New Mexico were added to the Union, had any new states been admitted (1).

Known as the Aloha State, Hawaii consists of a chain of 122 volcanic islands, but only seven are populated:

Hawaii (the Big Island)

Maui (the Valley Isle)

Lanai (the Pineapple Isle)

Molokai (the Friendly Isle)

Kauai (the Garden Isle)

Niihau (the Forbidden Island)

Oahu (the Gathering Place)

The state capital is Honolulu on the island of Oahu, which is also its largest city (2).

On the day when American reached 50, it seems appropriate to look at things that come in 50s. an Internet search yielded a variety of topics related to things that come in 50:

1. 50 States: A site that provides facts about all fifty states, such as state birds, state songs, and state flags.

2. 50 Things: A site started in 1998 that discusses things that are worth saving in the new millennium.

3. My50: Allows visitors to create a list of 50 things to achieve in their lifetime.

4. 50 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do: Celebrity and Expert Advice on Living Large: A book on Amazon.com.

5. Fifty Word Fiction: A blog devoted to stories that are only fifty words long.

6. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover: The lyrics of the Paul Simon hit.

7. 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation: The Fluoride Action Network seeks to broaden public awareness about the toxicity of fluoride compounds.

8. Fifty Reasons that Golf is Better than Football and Baseball: A list by Rick Woodson of the Rochester Business Journal.

9. National Geographic Traveler's "50 Places of a Lifetime": A list of great places at a web site full of all kinds of different lists.

10. 50 Ways to Love Your Liver: Tips for maintaining a healthy liver.

Today's Challenges: Three for Fifty

Challenge 1: Write a 50-Word Abstract
Writing a summary to an exact word count is an excellent exercise in revision. Select a news or magazine article of interest, and write a summary of the article's key points in 48-50 words -- that's no less than 48 words and no more than 50! Don't try to go for an exact word count on your first draft; instead, wait until you have a draft to work with. Revise your draft so that every word counts. Use varied sentences and transitions to connect your ideas and sentences.

Challenge 2: List of 50
Look at the 10 links provided in this post that have to do with 50s. Use them for inspiration to create your own list of 50: 50 reasons, 50 ways, 50 best, 50 worst, 50 things, 50 anything.

Challenge 3: First 50
This is a creative writing exercise inspired by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down the Bones. Pick a topic and start writing. Just write, don't judge, edit, or stop. Get at least 50 words down on paper before you look back at what you have written. You might do it with a friend or group of friends. Pick a common topic, write, and compare your compositions. If you are really ambitious, select one topic for each letter of the alphabet and create an Encyclopedia of Fifty-Word Topics. For more on this technique, see the First 50 Words website.

Quote of the Day: It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. --Carl Sagan

1 - http://gohawaii.about.com/od/hawaiianhistory3/a/admission_day.htm

2 - Aloha State Day. Those Were the Days.
http://www.440.com/twtd/t082106.html

August 20: Go Postal Day

On this date in 1986, Patrick Henry Sherrill, a disgruntled postal worker, opened fire on his co-workers at a post office in Oklahoma City. Before he committed suicide, he killed 14 people. This terrible incident along with a string of such incidents involving postal workers over the next seven years, led to coinage of the phrase to go postal.

The U.S. Postal Service was understandably unhappy when this usage began gaining currency in the language. In response to this public relations nightmare they created an independent commission to assess workplace violence in 1998. The Associated Press reported its findings:

The commission found that postal workers were no more likely to resort to workplace violence than workers in other jobs. It found 0.26 workplace homicides per 100,000 postal workers from 1992 to 1998. By comparison the rate was 2.10 per 100,000 for retail workers, 1.66 in public administration, 1.32 for transportation and 0.50 for private delivery services (2).

It seems that the final fifteen years of the millennium could be called "The Age of Rage." As chronicled in the book Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture, the phrase road rage, meaning "extreme anger exhibited by a motorist in response to perceived injustices committed by other drivers," began to appear in a few media stories in 1988. In the years that followed, the phrase became more and more common. The statistics below show the number of stories containing the phrase road rage that appeared each year:

1988-1993: 4
1994: 10
1995: 200
1996: 900
1997: 2,000 (1)

Expressions relating to angry crazed behavior are nothing new in English. The expression to go berserk entered the language in the 19th century, but its roots go back much farther. Berserk is from Old Norse meaning "bear shirt." It describes the Viking tactic of putting on bearskins and attacking and pillaging the enemy in a furious, crazed rage. British author Sir Walter Scott introduced the word into English in his 1822 novel The Pirate, and by 1940 it was being used in its present form to describe "crackpot behavior" (3).

Today's Challenge: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Millennium
Besides going postal and road rage, other forms of rage have made it into print, according to Paul McFedries in his book Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. All the examples below appeared in the 1990s, where rage was clearly all the rage. Given a clue, see if you can identify the specific rage:

1. Rage that resulted when proper etiquette was not followed, especially on greens and fairways.
2. Rage at 20,000 feet.

3. Rage directed at noisy audience members at a musical performance.

4. Rage directed at doctors, nurses, and HMOs.

5. Rage directed at pedestrians or cyclists.

6. Rage at sporting events, directed at other fans or the coaches or players of the opposing team.
7. Rage caused by the perceived commercialization of the Internet.

8. Rage directed at colleagues or bosses.


Quote of the Day: Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. --Kurt Vonnegut

Answers: 1. golf rage 2. air rage 3. concert rage 4. patient rage 5. sidewalk rage 6. sports rage or sideline rage 7. dot.com rage 8. work rage (or desk rage)

1 - Paul McFedries. Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.

2 - Talley, Tim. 20 years later, survivors recall terror of US postal massacre.
Associated Press. 19August 2006.
http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20060819/44e68cc0_3421_1334520060819-1808044477

3 - Metcalf, Allan. The World in So Many Words. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

August 19: Letter of Complaint Day

Today is the anniversary of a letter sent in 1862 by Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, to President Abraham Lincoln. The letter published in the Tribune with the title: "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions," was a direct challenge to the president. The final resolution of the Civil War was still very much in doubt in the summer of 1862; in fact, the Confederate armies of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were on the rise. In addition, Lincoln had written a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, but it would not be officially announced until September 1862.

Greeley's chief complaint with Lincoln in the letter was that he was not enforcing the Confiscation Act that authorized the confiscation of rebel property, including slaves who according to the law "shall be deemed captives of war and shall be forever free." Lincoln did not think that the law was well written, and his reticence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation revolved around his desire not to alienate still-loyal slaveholding border states.

To understand the weight of Greeley's letter, it is important to realize the importance of newspapers in 19th century America. In a time before radio and television, newspapers were the media, and in 1860 there were more than 2,500 -- that's more than were in the rest of the world combined. Greeley's New York Tribune was one of the most influential newspapers in the nation with a circulation in 1860 of 214,000. In addition, in the 19th century the reading of newspapers was a communal activity as illustrated from this passage from the book The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Own Words:

Many more people read newspapers than the paid subscribers. One copy was often read by several families. Numerous citizens heard editorials read aloud in an era that prized public reading. In countless general stores, neighbors gathered in the evening to listen to the reading of editorials from "Uncle Horace's Weekly Try-bune." As national issues heated up, people gathered by rural post offices to anticipate the stagecoach delivering their "newspaper Bible."

As a result of their influence on the masses, editors like Horace Greeley had a profound impact on the economy and the politics of the nation. Greeley's August 19th missive was not just a letter to the president, it was a letter to the president from a man who played a large role in his successful election to the presidency in November 1860.

From the very start of his letter, Greeley's tone is sober and assertive:

DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you -- for you must know already -- that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain.

In more than 2,200 words Greeley goes on to enumerate his complains against the president's leadership and apparent lack of resolve and direction.

In response to this public letter, Lincoln responded with a public letter of his own, published on August 23, 1862 in Washington's National Intelligencer. Terse compared to Greeley's letter, Lincoln wrote 370 words emphasizing his primary goal: not the freeing of slaves but the preservation of the "Union" -- a word he used nine times:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Lincoln might have used his letter to announce his plans for the Emancipation Proclamation, a draft of which he had in his desk as he wrote to Greeley. However, Lincoln was not one to let someone else force his hand. He did things for his own reasons and in his own time.

Today's Challenge: Vocabulary by the Letter

The ten words listed below are from Horace Greeley's letter to President Lincoln published in the New York Tribune on August 19, 1862. Writing in the 19th century, Greeley uses a level of vocabulary you probably won't find in 21st century newspapers. Nevertheless, these are words that educated readers should know. You might begin by reading Greeley's entire letter. Then, see if you can match up each word with its correct definition.

imperative malignant credulous implacable phalanx

solicitude prescribe unequivocal deference remiss

1. courteous regard

2. Failing in what duty requires

3. requiring attention or action

4. to order or to issue commands

5. dangerous to health

6. a feeling of excessive concern

7. incapable of being pacified

8. disposed to believe on little evidence

9. a body of troops in close array

10. admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding

Quote of the Day: Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them. --James Fallows

Answers: 1. deference 2. remiss 3. imperative 4 prescribe 5. malignant 6. solicitude 7. implacable 8. credulous 9. phalanx 10. unequivocal

1 - White, Ronald C. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words. New York: Random House, 2005.

August 18: CliffsNotes Day

Today is the birthday of Cliff Hillegass, the founder of CliffsNotes. Working for a college bookstore in the 1930s, Hillegass developed contacts with a Toronto books seller named Jack Cole, who published guides in Canada called "Cole’s Notes." Years later Cole suggested to Hillegrass that an American version of Cole’s Notes might be a good idea for U.S. students.

In August 1958, Hillegass took out a $4,000 loan and began CliffsNotes with his first title: Hamlet. He continued by publishing 15 more guides to Shakespeare’s plays. At the beginning, the guides were simply Cole’s Notes repackaged with an new cover: Cliff’s characteristic, and now famous, yellow and black cover.

In fact, Cliffsnotes have become so popular and recognizable that they have become a part of the English language. For example, you might hear someone say, "Just give me the Cliffsnotes version," meaning: "Give me a short summary instead of all the details."

Hillegass never intended his guides to just summarize the classics or replace the reading of the classics. Nevertheless his work has spawned numerous imitators, to the point that test prep and reading guides have become a multi-million dollar industry. Fairtest.org estimates that the amount spent on test prep material for the SAT alone amounts to $100 million dollars annually.

Hillegass sold his business to Hungry Minds, Inc. in 1999 for $14 million dollars. However, CliffsNotes.com still carries the following message from its founder:

Cliff's Message to Students
A thorough appreciation of literature allows no short cuts. By using CliffsNotes responsibly, reviewing past criticism of a literary work, and examining fresh points of view, you can establish a unique connection with a work of literature and can take a more active part in a key goal of education: redefining and applying classic wisdom to current and future problems.
—Cliff Hillegass

Today’s Challenge: First Impressions

The editors of CliffsNotes put together a list of the ‘Ten Titles that Every Adult Should Read.’ See if you can match each of the opening lines below with the appropriate title from the list.

1. This is the story of Achilles’ rage.

2. Robert Cohn was once the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.

3. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

4. 124 was spiteful.

5. When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor ....

6. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

7. "Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes."

8. "Who’s there?"

9. Call me Ishmael.

10. Who is John Galt?

A. A Tale of Two Cities
B. The Sun Also Rises
C. War and Peace
D. Walden
E. The Sound and the Fury
F. Moby Dick
G. Beloved
H. The Iliad
I. Atlas Shrugged
J. Hamlet

Quote of the Day: Obstacles are a natural part of life, just as boulders are a natural part of the course of the river. The river does not complain or get depressed because there are boulders in its path. --I Ching

Answers: 1. H, 2. B, 3. E, 4. G, 5. D, 6. A, 7. C, 8. J, 9. F, 10. I

August 17: Goldwynism Day

Today is the birthday of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. Born Schmuel Gelbfisz in Warsaw, Poland in 1879, Goldwyn immigrated to Canada and then New York when he was 19 years old. He left his job as a glove seller in 1913 to start a business in the infant movie industry, forming a company with his brother-in-law. For his first film The Squaw Man, he hired then unknown Cecil B. DeMille to direct.

Throughout his career as a movie producer Goldwyn helped build some of the most influential Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and United Artists. Despite the fact that he had a volatile temper and lacked formal education, Goldwyn had keen business instincts and is unquestionably one of the greatest geniuses in the history of film making.

In the realm of the English language, however, Goldwyn's name has become synonymous with malapropisms -- that is a ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with another word with a similar sound. Goldwyn is so notorious for his slips of the tongue, that an entire sub-category of malaprops are named for him: Goldwynisms. Wikipedia lists over 50 of these malaprops attributed to Goldwyn, such as one of the most famous: "A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on" (2).

The reality is, however, that like Yogi Berra, Goldwyn did not say everything that people said he said. In fact during his lifetime studio screenwriters even went so far as to hold contests to create the best Goldwynisms. The winner reportedly was "It rolls off my back like a duck" (3).

Today's Challenge: "I Didn't Say Everything I Said"
To verify the true Goldwynisms from the pseudo-Goldwynisms, we turn to the book The Quote Verifier which devotes a special section to Samuel Goldwyn. Label the malaprops below as Yes, meaning Goldwyn said it; Maybe, meaning the evidence in inconclusive; or No, meaning he did not say it.

1. I was on the brink of an abscess.

2. I'll give you a definite maybe.

3. I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

4. I can answer you in two words: 'im possible.'

5. I read part of it all the way through.

6. I don't care if my pictures don't make a dime, so long as everyone comes to see them.

7. Let's have some new cliches.

8. A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

9. In this business it's dog eat dog, and nobody's gonna eat me.

10. It's more than magnificent, it's mediocre.

Quote of the Day: Television has raised writing to a new low. --Attributed to Samuel Goldwyn (1879 -1974)

Answers: 1. Yes 2. Possibly 3. Yes 4. No 5. No 6. Yes 7 Maybe 8. No 9. Yes 10. Maybe

1 - Aberdeen, J. A. "Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood's Lone Wolf." The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers
http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/samuel-goldwyn_intro.htm

2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Goldwyn

3 - Keyes, Ralph. The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2006.

August 16: First Name Icons Day

Today is the anniversary of the death of rock and roll icon Elvis Presley, who died at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee in 1977. Only 42 years old, Elvis died of a heart attack brought on by his addiction to prescription drugs.

Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935. His family was poor, and at 19 he paid $4 to record some songs for his mother at a Memphis recording studio. The owner of the studio, Sam Phillips was impressed by Elvis' singing, and in 1954, he released Elvis' first single "That's All Right" on his Sun Records label.

From that point on Elvis' popularity exploded to the point that the single name Elvis became synonymous with rock and roll. Whether you love or hate his music, there is no denying his impact on the music and culture of the 1950s. He brought rock into the mainstream, made it an art form, and showed that it could produce billions of dollars in revenue (1).

The same year that Elvis entered the U.S. Army for a two-years stint, a child by the name of Madonna Louise Ciccone was born to a Catholic family in Bay City, Michigan. When Madonna was five years old, her mother died of breast cancer, and her father was left with six children to raise. Encouraged by her father to take piano lessons, Madonna tried music for a few months but eventually persuaded her father to pay for ballet lessons instead.

Her pursuit of a dance career took her to New York in 1977, the same year Elvis died. With only $35 dollars in her pocket, she struggled to earn a living and to perfect her dancing craft. She returned to music in 1979, forming a rock band and performing disco and dance songs in New York dance clubs. It's at this point that she gained the attention of Sire Records, signing a deal paying her $5,000 per song. With the release of her first album Madonna in 1983, "The Material Girl" achieved the kind of international fame and success that would make her a pop icon and the most successful female artist in history. Some might even argue that what Elvis did for rock and roll in the 1950s, Madonna did for pop music in the 1980s (2).

Besides the fact that both Elvis and Madonna dominated the music scene in their respective eras, they also share the rare distinction of being instantly and unambiguously recognized based on the invocation of just their first names. To achieve such a high degree of first name recognition is rare even among some of history's most revered icons. Of course, it does help to have a distinctive first name. If you refer to William Shakespeare, for example, as just William, your audience might not know if you are referring to The Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, or William Shatner.

Certainly there is a difference between using a one-name moniker and truly achieving the kind of across-the-board name recognition of an Elvis or a Madonna. The names on the following list, for example, are recognizable today for the vast majority of the population. But will they be 10, 50, or 100 years from now?

Twiggy
Shaq
Sting
Oprah
Bono
Cher
Osama

Today's Challenge: Say My Name
Examples of men and women whose notoriety has withstood the test of time can be found in the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium.

This book features 1,000 mini-biographies that are models of concise and clear prose. Using set criteria to score each personality, the authors rate Johannes Gutenberg number one and Andy Warhol number 1,000. However, between #1 and #1,000 there are only a few examples of individuals who have achieved the kind of notoriety to be called "First Name Icons." Given each person's ranking from 1,000 Years, 1,000 People and a few biographical details, see if you can come up with the first name, or, in some cases, the only known single name.

1. #4 He built the first telescope and challenged the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe.

2. #9 He painted the Mona Lisa.

3. #13 He sculpted the Pieta and David.

4. #16 He proclaimed himself emperor of France.

5. #30 He was the author of The Divine Comedy.

6. #36 He was the author of Candide.

7. #46 He was the Dutch master who painted The Nightwatch.

8. #50 He ruled Communist China for 37 years.

9. #91 Her name is synonymous with 19th century Britain.

10. #112 He was Italian and a master of lyric poetry and the sonnet (3).

Quote of the Day: Elvis Presley’s death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than twenty years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country.
--President Jimmy Carter, 1977. His official statement following Elvis' death.

Answers:1. Galileo 2. Leonardo 3. Michelangelo 4. Napoleon 5. Dante 6. Voltaire 7. Rembrandt 8. Mao 9. Victoria 10. Petrarch

1 - This Day in History - General Interest. Elvis Presley Dies: August 16, 1977. The History Channel.http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272981&cat=leadstory

2 - Madonna (entertainer) Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_%28entertainer%29

3 - Gottlieb, Agnes Hooper, Henry Gottlieb, Barbara Bowers, and Brent Bowers. 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium. New York: Kodansha International, 1998.

August 15: Words from India Day

Today is the anniversary of India's independence from the British Empire in 1947.

The British began their influence in India in the 1600s with the British East India Company which set up trading posts throughout India. From 1757 to 1947 the Raj, the term used for British rule over India, commanded India. Despite periodic insurrections and mutinies, the British were able to maintain control of India until the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi as leader of the independence movement. Through Gandhi's policy of civil disobedience and the shrinking of the British Empire after World War II, India finally gained its independence. Prior to the official declaration, however, the British had to decide which of India's religious groups, the Hindus and the Muslims, would receive power. To ensure that chaos would not ensue when they left, the British decided to partition India by creating a Muslim nation, Pakistan, and an independent India ruled by Hindus.

Unfortunately chaos did result as 10 million people scrabbled to relocate, resulting in violence between Hindus and Muslims. Violence continued after independence between India and Pakistan as the two nations fought for control of the northern region of Kashmir (1).

Although the English left India in 1947, English has never left India. Originally the plan was to supplant English, the language of the oppressor, with Hindi, the language with the highest number of speakers in India. This plan failed, however, because although there were more speakers of Hindi, there were also at least 14 other competing languages spoken across India, not to mention over 200 dialects. As a result, English became a neutral, stabilizing language, and because it was already the language of government, the legal system, science, economics, and education, the Indian Parliament determined that it would maintain English as one of the co-official languages of India (2).

In the 21st century, India has clearly benefited from its decision to continue its relationship with the English language. Its burgeoning economy probably would not be possible without English, and in India today, an education in English is a prerequisite for upward mobility.

Just as the nation of India has benefited from English, the English language has benefited from its exposure to Indian languages and culture. One example of a common English word borrowed from India is the word pariah. A low-ranking caste of southern India, the Pariahs served as drummers for religious festivals. The British mistakenly used their name in a general sense to refer to low castes throughout India, even the lowest castes of untouchables. As a result, the word today is used in English for any person who is rejected socially or politically (3).

Today's Challenge: Cheetahs, Nabobs, and Juggernauts
Given the clues below, see if you can identify the common English words borrowed from India

1. 10 letters - A broad sash worn with a tuxedo

2. 7 letters - to wash the scalp and hair with special soap.

3. 8 letters - A one-story house or cottage.

4. 4 letters - a strong-arm man hired to kill or beat up.

5. 7 letters - a sleeping suit.

6. 6 letters - a tropical rain forest.

7. 5 letters - a rich or powerful person.

8. 6 letters - a rowboat or sail sailboat.

Quote of the Day: Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will wake to life and freedom.--Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India on the eve of Independence Day in India.

Answers: 1. cummerbund 2. shampoo 3. bungalow 4. thug 5. pajamas 6. jungle 7. mogul8. dinghy

1 - Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction. New York: McDouglal Littell, 2005.

2- McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.

3 - Reader's Digest Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.

August 14: Macbeth Day

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1057 of the Scottish monarch Macbeth about whom Shakespeare wrote in his tragedy Macbeth. The facts of the historical Macbeth differ somewhat from the Macbeth of the Elizabethan stage, but like modern writers, Shakespeare was never one to let history get in the way of telling a good story.

Born in 1005, Macbeth rose to the thrown of Scotland by election in place of King Duncan's 14-year old son Malcolm. Duncan was not murdered at Macbeth's home as in the play; instead, he was killed in battle. The Macbeth of history was a Christian king who ruled for 14 years until August 14, 1057 (some sources say August 15) when he met Malcolm man-to-man in a fight to the death in a stone circle near Lumphanan. Dunsinane and Birnam Wood, locations referred to in Shakespeare's play, were actual locations of battle; however, these battles took place earlier than 1057. At Lumphanan, Malcolm was victorious, and it was he, not Macduff, who beheaded Macbeth (1).

Shakespeare adapts history in the Tragedy of Macbeth to examine the themes of free will, fate, ambition, betrayal, good, and evil. In his play, Macbeth is transformed from war hero to serial killer after he hears the prophecies of the weird sisters. Although he is warned by his friend Banquo to disregard the witches' words, Macbeth is unable to shake their spellbinding words. There is not a lot of subtlety or subplot in Macbeth. The action is swift and bloody. Even when the action on the stage is seemingly calm, the imagery of the dialogue is full of violent, grotesque images, such as in Lady Macbeth's plea to her husband to keep his promise to kill Duncan even though the king has honored Macbeth with a promotion and has come to their home as a guest for the night:

I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me;
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.(Act I, scene 7, lines 58-63)

It's probably no accident that a play about a Scottish king was written by Shakespeare during the reign of King James, the first Scottish King of England and the king whose most famous act was the commissioning of the King James Translation of the Bible, completed in 1611.

The history of the play's production, however, is full of accidents and superstition. From the very start the Macbeth acquired a reputation as a cursed play. During the first production of the play in 1606, the boy actor playing Lady Macbeth died backstage. It seems the dark and sinister events of the on-stage plot are echoed backstage. To this day superstitious actors refuse to identify the play by name, alluding to it only by the euphemism: "The Scottish Play." (2)

Today's Challenge: Macquotes
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most read and performed plays. See if you can identify the speaker of each of the quotes below.

Here are the names of the key players to refresh your memory: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, King Duncan, Macduff, Banquo, The Porter, The Witches

1. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

2. Fair is foul and foul is fair.

3. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths…

4. There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face…

5. Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?

6. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub?

7. He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

8. Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

Quote of the Day:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
--Act 5, Scene 5, Lines 19-28: Macbeth to himself

Answers: 1. Macbeth 2. The Witches 3. Banquo 4. King Duncan 5. Macbeth 6. The Porter
7. Macduff 8. Lady Macbeth

1 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/macbeth.shtml2 - Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakespeare. New York: Winokur/Boates, 1993.

August 13: Americanisms from the 1950s Day

Today is the anniversary of an article published in the show-business magazine Variety that featured a new word. The article published on August 13, 1950 used the term disc jockey for the first time in its reporting the phenomenon of New York radio hosts selecting and playing phonograph records for an eager audience of young fans of popular music. The term stuck, sometimes abbreviated as DJ or deejay. DJ is an example of an Americanism, an English word or expression that is born in the U.S.A. and that is used in the writing and speech of Americans.


The book America in So Many Words by David K. Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf documents Americanisms from the 1600s to the end of the 20th century. For each year, the authors select a single representative Americanism that was "newly coined or newly prominent." Looking at the words and the background of each is a reminder that every English word is like a fossil or an archaeological artifact that reveals the attitudes and trends of the age in which it was coined.


The below list of Americanisms from 1949 to 1960, for example, gives interesting insights into the characteristics of post-war America; the list also foreshadows several political, cultural, social, and economic trends that would emerge in the second half of the 20th century.


1949 cool

1950 DJ

1951 rock and roll

1952 Ms.

1953 UFO

1954 Fast Food

1955 hotline

1956 brinkmanship

1957 role model

1958 Murphy's Law

1959 software

1960 sit-in (1)



If English is the global language of the 21st century, then it is certainly American English which is the most influential variety of English. Whereas the English language of the British Empire dominated and propagated English around the world in the first half of the 20th century, American English, since the end of World War II, has exported English even farther than the Brits, via satellite and computer technology.


Even as early as 1780, John Adams envisioned this linguistic American Revolution:


English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age. The reason of this is obvious, because the increasing population in America, and their universal connection and correspondence with all nations will, aided by the influence of England in the world, whether great or small, force their language into general use.


One aspect that characterizes the American variety of English is its brevity. Americanisms are typically single syllable words or at least single syllable compounds. Americanisms include a variety of classifications that produce words that are short and sweet:

Americanisms are clipped words (such as fan from fanatic), blends (such as motel from motor + hotel), abbreviations (such as Ms. from mistress), initialisms (such as UFO from Unidentified Flying Object), and acronyms (such as AWOL from absent without leave).

In fact, even the word acronym is an Americanism that emerged from the government and military build-up of World War II to give Americans a way to compress multiple-word expressions into easy-to-communicate small packages. This Americanism uses Greek roots: acro- meaning top, peak, or initial and -nym meaning name. Using the initial letters of words, acronyms condense names, titles, or phrases into single words, such as radar for radio detection and ranging.


Today's Challenge: Born in the U.S.A.


Given the number of letters and a brief definition, see if you can identify the Americanisms below. None are more than four letters long


1. Three-letter word in response to someone stating to obvious.


2. A three-letter clipped word that emerged from rap music and its performers' desire for respect.


3. Two-letter initialism that reflects the American faith in the ability to measure anything, including the quality of a person's gray matter.


4. A three-letter clipped word that refers to any liquid, especially a sticky one.


5. A frequently used two-letter initialism with two different meanings. The first came out of the world of technology; the second meaning came out of the multicultural movement.


6. A two-letter initialism that refers to American soldiers.


7. A four-letter acronym that evolved from the Civil War to refer to soldiers who fled the battlefield or their assigned posts.


8. A three-letter initialism that reflects the American tendency to live life at a fast pace and to get things done in a hurry.


Quote of the Day: Thus the American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative. —H. L. Mencken


Answers:1. duh (1963) 2. dis (1986) 3. IQ (1916) [intelligence quotient] 4. goo (1902) 5. PC (1990) [personal computer; politically correct] 6. GI (1917) [See Word Daze June 22 GI Day 7. AWOL [absent without leave] (1863) 8. P.D.Q [Pretty Darn Quick] (1875)


1- Barnhart, David K. and Alla A. Metcalf. America in So Many Words: Words That Have Shaped America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.


2 - Algeo, John. "Americans are Ruining English." Language Myth #21. Do You Speak American? PBS.http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/ruining/

August 12: Edith Hamilton Day

Today is the birthday of Edith Hamilton whose writings on ancient civilization and mythology have been read by generations of students.

Born in Dresden Germany in 1867, Hamilton immigrated to the United States with her family as a child. At the age of seven, she began studying Latin and committing biblical passages to memory. She completed her education in classics at Bryn Mawr College in Baltimore where she later became headmistress. She gained a reputation as an excellent teacher, story teller, translator, and interpreter of Greek tragedies. Encouraged by her friends to write, she published her first book, The Greek Way (1930), in her 60s.

Hamilton continued writing into her 90s, writing a total of nine books. Although she wrote about ancient Rome and Israel, the civilization she seemed to admire the most was ancient Greece:

The fundamental fact about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priests had said, "Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought." The Greek said, "All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought."

Hamilton's best known and most widely read book is Mythology (1942) which she wrote as an overview of Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology. This book is known by generations of middle school and high school students who read it as a primer on the myths.

Prior to her death in 1963 at the age of 96, Hamilton received several honorary degrees in the U.S. and was also honored internationally as an official citizen of Athens, Greece in 1957 (1).

Today's Challenge: Words from the Gods
Many common English words spring from the stories that Hamilton told of the ancient Greek and Roman gods. Given the eight clues below, see if you can name the words.

1. This word for any grain, such as wheat or oats comes from the name of the Roman goddess of agriculture.

2. This word for a repeating sound comes from the name of a nymph who loved Narcissus.

3. This word for maintaining health and preventing disease comes from the name of the the Greek goddess of health.

4. This word for psychically induced sleep comes from the name for the Greek god of sleep.

5. This word for being full of happiness and playfulness comes from the name of the most powerful Roman god.

6. This word for being changeable or volatile comes from the name for the Roman messenger of the gods.

7. This word for sudden fear comes from the name of the Greek god of fields, forests, and wild animals.

8. This word, used to refer to something that induces sleep, comes from the name of the Roman god of sleep.

Today's Quote: It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is to be educated. --Edith Hamilton

Answers: 1. cereal 2. echo 3. hygiene 4. hypnosis 5. jovial 6. mercurial 7. panic 8. somniferous

1 - Sicherman, Barbara. "Edith Hamilton." The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company

August 11: Presidential Gaffe Day

On this date in 1984, President Ronald Reagan, known as the "great communicator," made one of the rare gaffes of his political career. While warming up for a radio address, Reagan said:

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

At the time Reagan was running for re-election against Democratic nominee Walter Mondale, and the President's faux pas resulted in a temporary dip in his poll numbers. However, Reagan won the November election and went on to continue his get-tough policy towards Russia. Ironically one of Reagan defining moments came in later comments about Russia; in 1987 he visited the Berlin Wall where he famously said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (1).

Some might argue that the most glaring faux pas in presidential history was committed by President Warren Harding. Ignoring advisers who told him to wrap up against the cold, he proceeded to give the longest ever inaugural address and died from the resulting chill one month later of pneumonia.

Here at Word Daze, however, we will focus on the verbal faux pas of the presidents. Based on this criteria, Harding's gaffe doesn't quite qualify; his speech was long (10,000 words), but today no one quotes any of his slips of the tongue. Faux pas, by the way, is translated from the French as "false step."

Today's Challenge: Presidential Tongue Lashings

See if you can identify the president who uttered each the following gaffes:

1. Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

2. Depends on what your definition of "is" is.

3. I love sports. Whenever I can, I always watch the Detroit Tigers on the radio.

4. When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

5. Comment made on September 7th: Today is Pearl Harbor Day - 47 years ago from this very day we were hit and hit hard at Pearl Harbor.'

6. Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning? (2)

Quote of the Day: Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well. --Barbara Bush

Answers: 1. George W. Bush 2. Bill Clinton 3. Gerald Ford 4. Calvin Coolidge 5. George H. W. Bush 6. George W. Bush

1 - This Day In History - Presidential - August 11. The History Channelhttp://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272976&cat=presidential

2 - List of U.S. presidential faux-pas, gaffes, and unfortunate incidentshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._presidential_faux-pas,_gaffes,_and_unfortunate_incidents

August 10: State Motto Day

On this date in 1821, Missouri was admitted to the union as the 24th state. Originally a part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Missouri achieved statehood as a slave state. It was the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that settled the controversy about admitting Missouri as a slave state, by admitting Maine as a free state (1).

Known as the "Show Me" state, Missouri's unofficial slogan is the stuff of legend. The story goes that Missouri's U.S. Congressman Williard Duncan Vandiver coined the slogan at a 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia where he said:

"I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me" (2).

The official state motto of Missouri is Latin: Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto ("Let the Welfare of the People Be the Supreme Law"). In fact, 'English Only' proponents might be surprised to learn that more than half of states in the union have mottos in languages other than English.

Here are the statistics on the polyglot mottos:

Latin: 22
French: 2
Greek: 1
Hawaiian: 1
Spanish: 1
Italian: 1
Native American - Chinook: 1

Six states feature one-word mottos. Only one state, Vermont, has its state's name in its motto, and Florida is the only state with the same motto as the United States of America: "In God We Trust." For a complete list of mottos with English translations visit Wikipedia (3).

Today's Challenge: Motto Mania
The geography pages at About.com include a humor section called "New State Mottos." See if you can match up the state with its "new" motto. When you finish, try creating some of your own mottos.

1. Please Don't Pronounce the "S"

2. As Seen on TV

3. Ask About Our State Motto Contest

4. 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free

5. We're Not REALLY An Island

6. Help! We're Overrun By Nerds and Slackers!

7. We Do Amazing Things With Corn

8. First Of The Rectangle States

9. "10,000 Lakes and 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes"

Quote of the Day: I don't give a damn about "The Missouri Waltz" but I can't say it out loud because it's the song of Missouri. It's as bad as "The Star-Spangled Banner." --Harry S. Truman Sources:

1 - The Library of Congress. American Memory. "Today in History: August 10." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug10.html

2 - Missouri Secretary of State's Office http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/slogan.asp

3 - U.S. State Mottos - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_mottos

4 - New State Mottos - http://geography.about.com/library/misc/blhumor11.htm

Answers:
1. Illinois 2. California 3. Nebraska 4. Indiana 5. Rhode Island 6. Washington 7. Iowa 8. Kansas 9. Minnesota

August 9: Walden Day

Today is the anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Two thousand copies were printed and put on sale for $1 each on August 9, 1854.

It took five years to sell those first thousand copies, but today Walden is one of the all-time best sellers in American literary history. It has also sold well overseas and has been translated into over 20 languages.

In his essay "Five Ways of Looking at Walden," Professor Walter Harding (1917-1996) talks about the different reasons that Walden has appealed to readers through the years. Below Harding's five points are summarized; to read his full essay, see the footnote at the end of this post.

1. Walden's first appeal was as a nature book. In an age of American progress and expansion, Thoreau left the city to live in the woods for two years and commune with nature. In today's modern age Thoreau reminds us that nature provides us with infinite metaphors for understanding our own existence. He reminds us to watch for signs of the changing of the season. In his own famous words from Walden, he explains why returning to nature is so important:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

2. The second appeal of Walden is its lessons on how to live life more simply. This aspect of Thoreau's work is especially relevant to the modern reader who is mired in possessions and the fast pace of the consumer culture.

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three , and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and refuse other things in proportion.
3. The third appeal of Walden is its satire. Thoreau doesn't just observe life in the woods; he reflects on the life he has left in the city, and his biting commentary pokes fun at progress. Here are samples of his views on the transatlantic telegraph cable and French fashion:

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

4. The fourth appeal of Walden is simply the pleasure of reading great writing. Thoreau is a master the abstract and the particular. Think of how many time you have seen Thoreau quoted. The clarity of his sentences and the exactness of his word choice make Thoreau's prose eminently quotable.

Here is one example from Walden. It's a 351 word sentence from the "House-Warming" section. It would be considered long even by 19th century standards. With Thoreau at the pen though, even an average reader can follow the sentence's path from beginning to end:

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head, — useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveler may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for housekeeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg that man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornament where the washing is not put out. nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trapdoor, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath without stamping.

Certainly not every sentence in Walden is this long, but whether writing a 2-word sentence or a 350-word sentence, Thoreau's syntax is precise and clear. Thoreau is a master of every tool of the writer's trade, including sentence variety.

5. The fifth appeal of Walden is its spiritual content. Here I'll quote Professor Harding's words:

It is a major thesis of Walden that the time has come for a spiritual rebirth — a renewal and
rededication of our lives to higher things. It is true that we have progressed a long way from the status of the caveman. But our progress has been for the most part material rather than spiritual. We have improved our means, but not our ends. We can unquestionably travel faster than our ancestors, but we continue to waste our time in trivial pursuits when we get there. We have cut down the number hours of labor required to keep ourselves alive, but we have not learned what to do with the time thus saved. We devote the major part of our national energy to devising new ways of blowing up the rest of the world and ignore attempts to make better men of ourselves.

Thoreau is sometimes mislabeled as a misanthrope. Although he does at times lament man's state, he nevertheless sees man's potential for better things. At the conclusion of Walden, for example, his words sound like a sermon from a pastor who is full of hope for his congregation:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them (1).

Today's Challenge: Words From Walden

Walden rewards the reader in many ways. One of these rewards is Thoreau's word choice. Professor Harding says the following about Thoreau's diction:

Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Thoreau's word choice is the size of his vocabulary. Walden is guaranteed to send the conscientious student to the dictionary. In a random sampling we find such words as integument, umbrageous, deliquium, aliment, fluviatile, and periplus. Yet Thoreau cannot be termed ostentatious in his word-usage. He simply searches for and uses the best possible word for each situation (1).

Below are 8 sentences from Walden. See if you can match up each of the 8 words in bold with its appropriate synonym listed below.

1. In the course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence at least.

2. It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future.

3. Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain.

4. I'd like to emulate my father's achievements in track and field and bring home a few trophies for display.

5. Why should our life be in any respect provincial?

6. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another.

7. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together.

8. It was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist with dew.

The synonyms: abundant, closed, imitate, narrow, obvious, talkative, unnecessary, wisdom

Quote of the Day: I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. --Henry David Thoreau.

Answers:
1. wisdom 2. unnecessary 3. closed 4. imitate 5. narrow 6. abundant 7. talkative 8. obvious

1- Harding, Walter. Five Ways of Looking at Walden. Massachusetts Review (Autumn 1962) ca. 1986.http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/H/WalterHarding/FiveWays.htm

Wordie: Amazing Site for Word Lovers

Today I discovered Wordie, a great place to discover new words, list your favorite words, and look at the lists of other logophiles. One of my favorite words, for example, is defenestrate. At Wordie, I see that there are 118 other people out there who share my interest in throwing things out of windows. One great feature of the site is that beside each word are links to multiple dictionaries, so you can immediately learn about an unfamiliar word.

August 8: Dollar and Cents Day

Today is the anniversary of the Continental Congress' establishment of the monetary system of the United States. The year was 1786, and the ordinance called for U.S. coins with the following names: mill, cent, dime, dollar, and eagle.

According to Bill Bryson in Made in America, bankers and businessmen wished to maintain the English system based on pounds and shillings, but Thomas Jefferson devised a distinctly new system based on dollars and cents.

The name dollar comes from a town in Bohemia called Joachimstal. A coin made there in the 1500s, the Joachimstaler, spead throughout Europe evolving from the taler, to the thaler, to the daler, and finally into the dollar.

The name dime comes from the French dixieme which means tenth. It was originally spelled disme and pronounced as deem.

The name cent comes from the Latin centum which means one hundred. The unofficial name penny comes from the Latin term pannus which means "a piece of cloth"; at one time these pieces of cloth were used for money.

The name mill comes from the Latin millesimus which means thousandth. A mill would have represented 1/1000 of a dollar; however, the federal government never minted the mill coin. The lowest denomination of coin ever created was a 1/2 cent piece.

The eagle was a $10 coin.

The missing coin from the 1786 ordinance, common today, is the demomination that represents 1/20 of a dollar: the nickel, named for the metal from which is was made (nickels never were made of wood) (1).

Today's Challenge: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Dollars and cents are certainly important in America, so important that many expressions contain references to money, such as fast buck, more bang for the buck, and pass the buck. The term buck has been slang for dollar since the mid-1800s, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. See if you can find the English idioms that fit in the sentences below; they all have to do with dollars, dimes, or cents. The literal definition of each expression is also given as a clue.

1. A virtual certainty: It's _____ _____ _____ that the team will make the playoffs.

2. To be absolutely sure: You can _____ _____ _____ _____ that he will be at the party.

3. Unexpected good fortune. I didn't think I would get a $500 rebate on my new car. When I got the check, it was _____ _____ _____.

4. Stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones. Dean clips all the coupons for supermarket bargains but insists on going to the best restaurants; he's ______ _____ _____ _____ _____.

5. So plentiful as to be valueless. Don't bother to buy one of these -- they're a _____ _____ _____.

6. To inform on or betray someone. No one can cheat in this class -- someone's bound to _____ _____ _____ and tell the teacher.

7. Take action and end delay. It's time this administration _____ _____ _____ _____ and came up with a viable budget (2)

Quote of the Day: There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves

Answers: 1. dollars to doughnuts 2. bet your bottom dollar 3. pennies from heaven 4. penny wise and pound foolish 5. dime a dozen 6. drop a dime 7. got off the dime

1 - Bryson, Bill. Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. New York: Perennial, 1994.

2 - Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997

August 7: Syntax Day

Today is the anniversary of the Whiskey Rebellion.

In 1794 farmers in western Pennsylvania rebelled against a federal tax on liquor by tarring and feathering tax collectors and torching their homes. It was one of the first tests of federal authority for the young United States. In response to the uprising, President George Washington called in more than 12,000 Federal troops.The rebels put up little residence, fleeing to hide in the woods. Twenty were captured, and one man died while in prison. Only two of the rebels were convicted of treason, and both of these men where eventual pardoned by Washington (1).

There is a long tradition of sin taxes in America, and it may be a bad pun, but on what other day can you celebrate the syntax of English sentences?

Syntax is simply the way writers put together phrases and clauses to make sentences. Knowledge of syntax helps writers create more varied sentences. For example, variety in sentence openings is an important feature of good writing. Starting with the subject is a natural feature of English sentences, and there is nothing wrong with it. However, if every one of your sentences begins with the subject, your writing will sound monotonous and lifeless.

Three effective methods for adding variety to sentence openings are using prepositional phrases, participial phrases, and dependent clauses. Let's look at how you can manipulate a sentence's syntax to open in a variety of ways.

I. Open with a Prepositional Phrase: These phrases begin with a preposition and end with a noun, such as: on the roof, over the rainbow, in the garden, from the city, out the window.

Original Sentence: The students gathered in the cafeteria to watch the multimedia presentation on dental hygiene.

Revised sentence, opening with a prepositional phrase: In the cafeteria, the students gathered to watch the multimedia presentation on dental hygiene.

II. Open with a Participial Phrase: These phrases begin with a verb in the -ing form that describes the subject of the sentence, such as, eating a sandwich, mailing a letter, or singing a song.

Original Sentence: Bill killed time waiting for his dentist appointment by reading a magazine article on effective flossing techniques.

Revised Sentence, opening with a participial phrase: Reading a magazine article on effective flossing techniques, Bill killed time waiting for his dentist appointment.

III. Open with a Dependent Clause: These clauses contain both a subject and a verb and begin with a subordinating conjunction, such as: after he ate lunch, because she missed the quiz, or after she read the novel.Original Sentence: Max likes to play Ping-Pong, so he never leaves home without his paddle.Revised Sentence, opening with a dependent clause: Because Max likes to play Ping-Pong, he never leaves home without his paddle.

Today's Challenge: No Sin Syntax
Revise the sentences below so that they begin with the designated opening.1. Josh ran a record mile in his sweaty bowling shoes. (Open with a prepositional phrase).2. Mary thought about how to finish her project. She sat in the living room. (Open with a participial phrase)3. The teacher announced that the test was cancelled. The class cheered. (Open with a dependent clause)

Quote of the Day: Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds. --Dorothy L. Sayers

Answers:1. In his sweaty bowling shoes, Josh ran a record mile.

2. Sitting in the living room, Mary thought about how to finish her project.

3. When the teacher announced that the test was cancelled, the class cheered.

1 - Whiskey Rebellion Begins. This Day in History - Wall Street. The History Channel.http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272972&cat=wallstreet

2 - Backman, Brian. Thinking in Threes: The Power of Three in Writing. Fort Collins, Colorado: Cottonwood Press, Inc., 2005.

August 6: Interjection Day

Today is the anniversary of the British release of the Beatles album Help!, the soundtrack of their second film by the same title.

The title song, like most Beatles songs, is credited to the Lennon-McCartney song writing team, but it was primarily a Lennon composition. John Lennon explained that the song was written during the height of Beatlemania and was a literal cry for help.

The covers of both the British and the American albums show the Fab Four standing with their arms outstretched to signal semaphore letters. Strangely the letters do not spell out H - E - L -P; instead, they spell N - V - U - J.

The Beatles second film, a James Bond spoof, was not as well received as their critically acclaimed first film A Hard Day's Night. The music of the film, however, revealed the Beatles maturing songwriting talent with such songs as "I've Just Seen A Face," "Ticket to Ride," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," and "Yesterday." The varied tempos of the songs and the lyrics, more sophisticated than those on previous albums, showed that the Beatles were moving beyond "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah."

The words help and yeah are both interjections: words or phrases that express emotion but have no grammatical connection to the rest of a sentence. One of the most overlooked and underrated parts of speech, interjections are an important part of the way we communicate.

The book ZOUNDS! A Brower's Dictionary of Interjections is a catalog of over 500 interjections, their definitions and origins. Where else can you learn that there are a total of 109 two-letter words allowable for Scrabble, and that 23 of those two-letter words are interjections:

ah, aw, ay, bo, eh, er, fy, ha, hi, ho, io, lo, my, oh, oi, ow, sh, st, ta, um, ur, ou, yo

The book, written by Mark Dunn and illustrated by Sergio Aragones, gives fascinating and funny background explanations for each interjection.



Here is a small A-Z sample of some of the interjections featured. You can also watch the unforgettable School House Rock video.





aha


bravo


check


definitely


eureka


far-out

gadzooks

hi

I declare

jeepers

knock-knock

la-di-da

my bad

no soap

O.K.

please

quiet

rats

sorry

thanks

uff-da

very well

way to go

yadda-yadda

zounds (1)

Today's Challenge: Wow! The Interjection Hall of Fame!
Read each of the famous interjections below and see if you can identify the name of the person or character who made it famous.

1. "Eureka!"

2. "Badabing-badaboom"

3. "Stuff and nonsense!"

4. "Bah! Humbug!"

5. "Fiddle-dee-dee !"

6. Leapin' lizards!"

7. "Nanoo, nanoo"

8. "Dyn-O-Mite!"

9. "Bully!" (1)

Quote of the Day:

CLAUDIO. O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICK. How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha! he! --William Shakespeare, from Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene 1.

Answers: 1. Archimedes 2. Tony Soprano 3. Alice, in Alice in Wonderland 4. Scrooge 5. Scarlet O'Hara 6. Little Orphan Anne 7. Mork, from "Mork & Mindy" 8. Jimmy Walker from "Good Times" 9. President Theodore Roosevelt

1 - Dunn, Mark and Sergio Aragones. Zounds!: A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2005.

Potter-mania in Anacortes

It's a great time to be an English teacher! Here's a news story from the Skagit Valley Herald about the positive influence of Harry Potter. Some of my students are profiled and quoted in the story. I'm also quoted -- they misspelled my name though: it's "Backman" not "Bachman."

August 5: Brainstorming Day

Today is the birthday of Alex F. Osborn the father of brainstorming. Born in New York, New York in 1886, he pursued a career in journalism but eventually found himself working in business, first in sales and then in advertising.

In 1938 the advertising company that he founded (Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn) began using an organized method of generating ideas. Although Osborn is credited with coining the word for this technique, brainstorming, he never took full credit for the word; instead, he acknowledged his colleagues who along with Osborn used their brains to attack or storm a problem. Osborn also credited religious leaders in the East, saying that that Hindu teachers in India used a similar technique for more than 400 years. In India it was called Prai-Barshana: Prai for "outside yourself" and Barshana for "question."

Regardless of where the word came from, brainstorming is a vital technique for generating ideas in business, government, and especially for writing.

Typically brainstorming sessions work best in small groups, so that the individuals can join forces and build on the ideas of other in the group. The goals is to create a list of ideas that has flexibility and fluency. Fluency means the number of ideas generated, and flexibility means how different the ideas are from each other and how different they are from what most people think up.

In order to create a list of ideas that has flexibility and fluency, follow these rules:

1. Defer judgment. Don't edit, eliminate, or hold back any ideas. Criticism kills participation, and often an idea that looks bad at first turns out to be a good one in the long run. Osborn used the following analogy to illustrate the need to put criticism aside when brainstorming:

If you try to get hot and cold water out of the same faucet at the same time, you will get only tepid water. And if you try to criticize and create at the same time, you can’t turn on either the cold enough criticism or the hot enough ideas. So let’s stick solely to ideas-lets cut out all criticism during this session.

2. Go for quantity of ideas. The more ideas, the greater the likelihood that some of those ideas will be good. A good analogy for this is a professional photographer who takes hundreds of pictures, knowing that only a very small percentage of those pictures will be worth keeping.

3. Encourage wild, exaggerated ideas. Free from the criticism and logic of the left brain, the right side of the brain, the creative side, will have a higher likelihood of creating something new. Image how absurd the initial idea of selling bottled water must have been? Why would people pay for water when they can get it free from the tap? Alex Osborn believe in the power of the human imagination to generate new ideas that can change our lives for the better. His 1953 book Applied Imagination is a pioneering work in the field of creativity. In this book he outlines techniques like brainstorming that help us to enter into the creative mindset and stay there for a longer period of time.

Today's Challenge: The Forecast Calls for Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an important prewriting technique for writers. The more time you spend brainstorming, the higher the chances that you will find something that is really worth writing about. Below are 10 questions for brainstorming. Get a small group together, or practice on your own. Use the rules for brainstorming to generate a large list of ideas that has both fluency and flexibility.

1. What are some ways we might improve the #2 pencil?

2. What would be the best opening scene for a suspense film?

3. In the opening sentences of a novel, the main character takes off his shoes and socks and ties the two sock into a knot. Why is he doing this?

4. If we divided blogs into three or more different categories, what might those three categories be?

5. What are the similarities and differences between cats and dogs?

6. What are some examples of stupid things that otherwise intelligent people sometimes do by mistake?

7. What are the three most important steps in studying for a test?

8. What will you see on the Internet five year from now that you don't see today?

9. Imagine that next year, 8-track tapes make a big comeback. Why might this happen?

10. What would be an interesting question for brainstorming in a small group?

Quote of the Day: It's the miner's headlamp, not the eureka flash, that drives reliable innovation. The process of innovation is the sweaty work of digging through tons of information to find a few golden nuggets -- mainly unlikely knowledge combinations. \

--T George Harris

1 - Gurule, Jason. "Alex F. Osborn." The seminar on Theories of Persuasive Communication and Consumer Decision-Making for Dr. John Leckenby at the University of Texas at Austin. http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/spring_02/adv382j/jagurule/Osborn/osbornfront.html

August 4: Top 100 Day

Today is the the anniversary of the introduction of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. The first number one song on the chart was Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool."

Prior to August 4, 1958, Billboard had separate charts for Most Played By Jockeys, Best Sellers in Stores, and Most Played in Juke Boxes. The new Hot 100 list combined the Best Sellers and the Most Played By Jockeys lists into a single chart. Because Juke Boxes were becoming less popular, their numbers were not included.

The linguistic equivalent of Billboard's Hot 100 would have to be Word Spy's Top 100 Words . Created by technical writer Paul McFedries, Word Spy is a web site devoted to neologisms. Neologisms are new words -- words that have appeared in print multiple times, but that are not in the dictionary.

Word Spy gives the arm chair linguist a peek behind the lexical curtain. Visiting this web site is a little like watching a preseason football practice: you get to see all the players (words) on the field, but you're not sure which ones will make the final cut. In the case of neologisms, the final cut is making it into the dictionary. The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary do their work behind the scenes, and most neologisms have the life span of the common house fly. In contrast, Word Spy makes lexicography democratic: you get to see all the words, it's free, and McFedries even accepts reader submissions.

Here are a couple of examples for neologisms from Word Spy:

aireoke (air.ee.OH.kee) n. Playing air guitar and singing to prerecorded music; playing air guitar in a public performance. Also: air-eoke. [Blend of air guitar and karaoke.]

Manilow method n. The discouragement of loitering in public places by broadcasting music that is offensive to young people, particularly the songs of singer Barry Manilow.

In addition to words and definitions, Word Spy also provides pronunciations, citations, and notes on each word. WARNING: Reading this site can become addictive! (2)

Today's Challenge: Brave New Words
See if you can match up the 8 neologisms from Word Spy with the 8 definitions numbered below.

freegan
buzzword bingo
godcasting
NOPE
Google bombing
Drink the Kool-Aid
fauxhawk
male answer syndrome

1. n. A person or attitude that opposes all real estate development or other projects that would harm the environment or reduce property values.

2. n. A hairstyle in which a strip of hair across the top of the head is longer and higher than the hair on the remainder of the head.

3. n. A person, usually a vegan, who consumes only food that is obtained by foraging, most often in the garbage of restaurants, grocery stores, and other retailers.

4. v. To become a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly.

5. n. Setting up a large number of Web pages with links that point to a specific Web site so that the site will appear near the top of a Google search when users enter the link text.

6. n. The tendency for some men to answer a question even when they don't know the answer.

7. n. A word game played during corporate meetings. Players are issued bingo-like cards with lists of buzzwords such as paradigm and proactive. Players check off these words as they come up in the meeting, and the first to fill in a "line" of words is the winner.

8. pp. Podcasting an audio feed with a religious message (2).

Quote of the Day: The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. --Alexis de Tocqueville

Answers: 1. NOPE: (Not On Planet Earth) 2. fauxhawk 3. freegan 4. Drink the Kool-Aid5. Google bombing 6. male answer syndrome 7. buzzword bingo 8. godcasting

1 - This Day in History - Entertainment - August 4. The History Channel
http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272969&cat=entertainment

2. wordspy.com
http://www.wordspy.com/topwords.asp

August 3: Idiot Letter Day

On this date in 1993, one of the most hilarious missives in the history of letter writing was sent to an American corporation. Before we look at the letter, let's look at the history of how it came to be written.

In July of 1993 Paul Rosa received a piece of junk mail that changed his life. It was a brief letter from Pizza Hut's delivery unit saying that they had not received an order from Rosa's address in a long time. The letter from the Vice-president of Pizza Hut marketing reminded Rosa of the quality, variety, and value of Pizza Hut pizza. It might have been just another piece of junk mail, but one line in the letter resonated with Rosa. It said: "You see, you're the kind of customer we'd like to see more often." Rosa wrote back a letter to Pizza Hut asking "What kind of customer wouldn't you like to see more often?"

This first letter started a letter-writing campaign that went on for months, covering more than 100 different corporations. Rosa's mission statement was: Since American corporations are treating their customers like idiots, "while reaching for their wallets," I am going to get even by writing them letters in which I act like an idiot.

The letters from Rosa's "kamikaze consumer crusade" were published in 1995 in the book Idiot Letters: One Man's Relentless Assault on Corporate America.

The following is the letter that Rosa sent to Oil-Dri Corporation of America the makers of Cat's Pride Premium Cat Litter on August 3, 1993.

Dear Cat Lovers,

For the first ten years of my cat's life, it was a living hell trying to get her to use her litter box! Whenever she would get the call from nature (night or day), she would howl until someone would let her out. Needless to say, this made my wife (Vicki) and I extremely angry, as we were often woken from a sound slumber, or interrupted during...Matlock. We tried many litter boxes (circular, octagonal, etc.) and brands of cat litter, but she simply refused to cooperate. We were actually tempted to give her away, but simply love her too much -- she was a gift from my mother (Irene).

This all changed a few months ago when, at wits' end, we tried Cat's Pride on the suggestion of a friend (Max). Well, we were delighted, nay ecstatic, when Jesse - without hesitation - stepped into the litter box and "unloaded." After ten years of treating her box like it was filled with glass chips, we finally found something she likes! And her attitude hasn't changed! Since that day she has ventured to the basement on a daily basis to fulfill her duty. The increased cleaning chores on our part are quite acceptable, considering the time now saved from letting her in and out and in and out and .... I don't know what's in that stuff, but it has done the impossible: changed the lifestyle of a ten year old cat (70 to you and me)! Yippee!

The only thing I thought was a bit odd was the name "CAT'S PRIDE." I can understand that your corporation would be proud of this cat litter, but a cat? When Jesse is heaving and straining in her box, I don't thing pride is one of her sentiments. In fact I don't think cats are proud of anything at all, ever! So, why did you choose this name? It seems wrong to suggest what cats are "feeling" without offering any proof. Isn't that dishonest?

In conclusion, I am thrilled with your product - it's a godsend - but must take exception to the misleading name. Would you be so kind as to get back to me on this subject matter? In the meantime, I'd be honored to recommend "Cat's Pride" to my friends!

Feline Fine,

Paul C. Rosa

To their credit, the makers of Cat's Pride answered Rosa's letter and even sent along some money saving coupons.

Today's Challenge: Going Postal
Letter writing is a lost art in an age of telephones and email, but there are few more thoughtful ways to communicate with another person. Paul Rosa wrote to get his questions answered. What question would you like to have answered? Look around you, ask questions, and then write a letter to someone who might be able to answer your question. Write a idiot letter like Paul Rosa or a serious letter.

As a reminder, even humorous letters like Rosa's follow a format. Here are the key parts of a letter:

1. Heading with your name and address
2. Date
3. Inside Address: name and address of the recipient of the letter
4. Salutation ("Dear Mr. Smith")
5. Body of Letter
6. Complimentary Closing ("Sincerely")
7. Your Signature

Quotes of the Day:

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. - Mark Twain

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. -- Albert Einstein

1 - Rosa, Paul. Idiot Letters: One Man's Relentless Assault on Corporate America. New York: Doubleday, 1995

August 2: Urgent Letter Day

Today is the anniversary of a letter that changed history. The letter, dated August 2, 1939, was written by physicists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard; it was addressed to the President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The letter's content warned the president of the Nazi's possible use of uranium for the development of atomic weapons.

The story behind this historic letter that led to the Manhattan Project, begins in Germany, which prior to 1933 was a hotbed of scientific inquiry: Germany had been awarded 99 Nobel Prizes in science compared to the United States' 6 Nobel Prizes. The rise of anti-semitism and of Adolf Hitler, however, caused many Jewish scientists to flee Germany.

One of those who fled was physicist Leo Szilard who relocated to England. While sitting at a London traffic light in 1933 he had an epiphany: theoretically the atom could be split, creating a chain reaction of enormous power.

Szilard's idea moved from theory to fact in 1939 when German scientists successfully split an atom. The fact that German scientists now had the knowledge of the potentially destructive power of the atom in their hands alarmed Szilard.

Traditionally scientists around the world published their breakthroughs for all to see. Szilard was afraid that the German scientists were using this information to develop a bomb. His fears were heightened when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 and stopped all exports of uranium ore from the occupied country.

He urged scientists outside of Germany to delay publication of their findings in fission-related areas, and he initiated a meeting with his former teacher Albert Einstein.

Einstein, like Szilard, was a Jew and had fled Germany during the rise of Hitler. By 1939 Einstein's theory of relativity had made him an international celebrity -- just the kind of name recognition that Szilard needed to get his alarm bell heard by world leaders.

Szilard met with Einstein in New York on July 30. Einstein dictated the letter to Szilard in German, and Szilard later translated it into a typed final draft for Einstein's signature.

The letter's opening read as follows:

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations.

To see the entire letter visit http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Begin/Einstein.shtml

Even Einstein's signature, however, did not guarantee that the letter would get the attention it deserved. Einstein and Szilard entrusted the letter to Alexander Sachs, an unofficial advisor to F.D.R., but Roosevelt was preoccupied with the growing war in Europe, and Sachs was unable to get an appointment with him until October 1939.

To persuade Roosevelt, Sachs used a historical analogy. He told Roosevelt about an American inventor who met with the French emperor during the Napoleonic Wars. The inventor offered to build a fleet of steamships that could invade England regardless of the weather. Napoleon was incredulous, unable to think beyond ships with sails. He sent the American away. The shortsightedness, arrogance, and lack of imagination of Napoleon saved England and sealed Napoleon's fate. It was a powerful analogy, and despite the fact that it took time for the Manhattan Project to get off the ground, it was the letter and Sach's persuasiveness that led to the development of the atomic bomb that Harry Truman had dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Ironically, near the end of the war the Allies discovered that the Germans were at least two years away from developing the bomb. Furthermore, both Szilard and Einstein objected to the United States' use of the bomb. Even though Einstein did not work directly on the Manhattan Project, he called his decision to sign the letter to President Roosevelt the "one great mistake in my life" (1).

For a more detailed account of the letter and its impact on history, read the chapter on "Einstein's Letter" in Ten Days that Unexpectedly Changed America.

Today's Challenge: Notes, Missives, and Epistles

Below are excerpts from 6 letters by famous people from Rosalie Maggio's book How They Said It:

Beethoven
E.B. White
Dylan Thomas
Abraham Lincoln
Groucho Marx
Samuel Johnson

See if you can guess which man wrote which letter:

1. I am, by accident, not by nature, so abominably rude and unreliable that I have to spend the best part of the first week after my regular short visits to town in writing frantic letters of apology.

2. Never come near me again! You are a faithless cur, and may the hangman take all faithless curs.

3. . . . . I had to tell someone (and it might as well be you since you're the author) how much I enjoyed "The Dud Avocado." It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm) . . . .

4. I have been hindered from writing to you by an imagination that it was necessary to write more than I had time for . . . .

5. I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. . . . I can only assume that your editorial writer, in a hurry to get home for Thanksgiving, tripped over the Fifth Amendment and thought it was the office cat . . . .

6. The bearer of this is a young man who thinks he can be a lawyer. Examine him if you want to. I have done so and am satisfied. He's a good deal smarter than he looks to be.

Quote of the Day: We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Answers: 1. Dylan Thomas 2. Beethoven 3. Groucho Marx 4. Samuel Johnson 5. E.B. White 6. Abraham Lincoln

1 - Gillon, Steven M. Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006.

2 - Maggio, Rosalie. How They Said It: Wise and Witty Letters From the Famous and Infamous. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000.

August 1: Capitonym Day

August First is one of the most august days on the calendar.

August is the month named for the first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus Caesar, whose uncle was Julius Caesar. Emulating his Uncle Julius, for whom July is name, Augustus wanted his own month. August was created in his honor, based on the official title Augustus that the Roman Senate gave Octavian (1).

The opening sentence of this post demonstrates that August/august is a capitonym.

A capitonym is a word that changes pronunciation and meaning depending on whether or not it is capitalized; therefore, an August dinner party is quite different from an august dinner party.

Here's a short poem from Richard Lederer's Word Circus containing four examples of capitonyms:

Job's Job

In August, an august patriarch

Was reading an ad in Reading, Mass.

Long-suffering Job secured a job

To polish piles of Polish brass (2)

Today's Challenge: Begin August with an August Word Challenge

Fill in the blanks below with the appropriate capitonyms.

1. We had a ______ two-week vacation in _____, France.

2. Yesterday was a ________ day than today on Mount __________.

3. We walked all over _____, Peru looking for a place to buy some ______ beans.

4. Don't ________ Ron by asking him to correctly pronounce the name of the _______ River.

5. As a child Mark _________'s hockey gear always made his room much _________ than his sister's room.

Quote of the Day: Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. --Diane Ackerman

Answers: 1. nice (NICE - NEECE) 2. rainier - (RANE-ee-er, ray-NEER)3. lima (LEE-ma, LIE-ma) embarras (em-BAR-rass, AUM-bro) 5. messier (mess-ee-AYE, mess-ee-ER)

1- Funk, Wilfred. Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950.

2 - Lederer, Richard. The Word Circus. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1998.