May 23: Sleep-in Day

Today is the birthday of Austrian physician Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) who discovered animal magnetism and whose work influenced the development of hypnosis. Animal magnetism was the term used to describe the mysterious magnetic powers that Mesmer claimed he could control to cure ailments. He did several public demonstrations of his art, but was pressured to leave Vienna by the medical community. He moved to Paris to continue his work, but in 1784 a scientific panel examined his practices and proclaimed that they had no basis in science.

Mesmer died in Switzerland in 1815, but thirty years after his death Scottish physician James Braid adapted Mesmer’s ideas and invented the procedure known as hypnosis. Braid also coined the terms hypnotism, hypnotize, and hypnotist (1).

Although Franz Mesmer is hardly a household name, he has become a part of the English lexicon. The verb mesmerize, meaning to 'spellbind or enthrall,' comes from Mesmer, his experiments, and his public demonstrations of his art. Mesmerize is another example of an eponym, a word derived from the name of a real or imaginary person (See Word Daze, March 28: Eponym Day).

James Braid might have used Mesmer’s name to describe his work; but instead, Braid turned to Greek mythology to describe his practice of inducing sleep in his patients. In Greek Mythology Hypnos was the god of sleep and the son of Zeus and Nyx, the goddess who personified night.

The Roman equivalent of Hypnos is Somnus, the source of the adjectives somniferous (inducing sleep) and somnolent (drowsy; sleepy). The Roman god of sleep also inspired the verb somnambulate, meaning to sleep walk.

The common word "sleep" as you might have guessed is from Old English.

Because sleep is an activity that we spend roughly one third of our life engaged in, it has been a frequent theme in literature. Probably the most famous example is Shakespeare’s Scottish play, where Macbeth, after he has killed King Duncan, rhapsodizes on the importance of sleep:

Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep' -- the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
(Act II.ii.47-52)

Today’s Challenge: I’m Only Sleeping
Below are descriptions of literary characters (and one place) that come under the category of ‘sleep’ in The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. See if you can identify the name of each character (2).

1. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, he snoozed all through the tea party.

2. Washington Irving character who slept for twenty years before waking.

3. From the Bible, its east of Eden and the place where Cain was banished after he killed Abel.

4. A Shakespearean character who sleepwalks and is troubled by guilt after urging her husband to kill the king.

5. A princess from a fairy tale who has a spell put on her by a wicked fairy.

6. Another Shakespearean character, she was queen of the fairies. While she sleeps Oberon drops magic flower juice in her eyes.

7. The Roman god of dreams, son of Somnus.

8. A character from children’s stories who sprinkles a magical substance in their eyes to make them sleepy.

Quote of the Day: Good communication is a stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. –Ann Lindberg

Answers: 1. The Dormouse 2. Rip Van Winkle 3. The Land of Nod 4. Lady Macbeth5. Sleeping Beauty 6. Titania 7. Morpheus 8. The Sandman

1 - http://www.who2.com/franzantonmesmer.html

2 - Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

May 21: Defenestration Day

It's not often that we can trace the precise day and year that a word was born, but one particularly interesting word was born on this day in 1618. The word word is defenestration which means: The act of throwing something or someone out the window.

Just before the beginning of The Thirty Years War, a war in which Roman Catholics and Protestants battled for political and religious power, Protestant nobles threw two members of the Roman Catholic royal council and their secretary from a window in Hradcany Castle in Prague. The good news concerning this momentous defenestration is that no one was hurt (1).

The word defenestration comes to us from Latin: de-, out + fenestra, window.

The word window comes to English via Old Norse vindauga: vindr, wind + auga, eye. Window is also a kenning, a figurative device used figurately in Old English and Old Norse where a compound expression is used in place of a noun. They are found frequently in poetic epics like Beowulf, but we also create them today. For example, here are some modern kennings: boob tube, fat pill, gas guzzler, and gut bomb.

One interesting new meaning of defenestration that has appeared recently on the Internet but not in the dictionary - yet - is: The act of removing a Windows operating system from a computer in order to install an alternative one (2).

Today's Challenge: A Verb of Your Own
Defenestrate is not a word you hear or read everyday, but it is an example of an action verb that relates to a very specific action, such as David Letterman defenstrating TVs, watermelons, or rotten eggs. Your task today is to create one or more new action verbs. Start by thinking of an action that we don't have a single verb for in English, such as "to sneeze quietly." You might also think of some type of action that is a reletively new activity, such as: to get stuck in a fast food drive through lane without enough money to pay for your meal. Once you have a definition, set your mind to coming up with one new verb to describe it.

Quote of the Day: Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for appreciation. Give it to them and they will love you. --Dale Carnegie

Sources:
1 - Ammer, Christine. Fighting Words: From War, Rebellion, and Other Combative Capers. New York: Paragon House, 1989.

2 - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/defenestration

May 16: Biographer's Day

Today is the anniversary of the first meeting between Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the author of the landmark Dictionary of the English Language, and his biographer James Boswell (1740-1795). The two men met in Davies’s London bookshop in 1763, and established a relationship that would allow Boswell to produce what is recognized as the greatest biography ever written: The Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791.

The word biography is Greek (bio = life + graph = writing)

A number of words feature the graph root as it relates to writing. Here are words and definitions from English Vocabulary Quick Reference by Roger S. Crutchfield (1):

Autobiography: The story of one’s life written by oneself (auto-, self)

Autograph: Written or made with one’s own hand, as a signature (auto- self)Bibliography: A list of writings (biblio- book)

Cacography: Illegible handwriting (caco, poor)

Cryptography: The art or science of writing and deciphering secret codes (crypto, secret)

Dysgraphia: Impairment of the ability to write (dys-, impaired)

Hagiography: Biographies written about saints (hagio, holy)

Lexicography: The branch of linguistics dealing wit the writing or compiling of dictionaries (lex, word)

Orthography: Correct spelling (ortho, correct)

If you are a bit behind on your reading of biography, an excellent way to get caught up is to read the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium. As the title suggests, this excellent book features 1,000 mini-biographies that are models of concise and clear prose. In addition, the authors created what they call the BioGraph System of ranking each of the 1,000 people. To lend some objectivity to their process, they created a list of five specific criteria and awarded points in each category. For example, number one on the list is Johannes Gutenberg with a score of 21,768 and number 1,000 is Andy Warhol with 1,000 points (2).

Criteria for Inclusion in the Top 1,000 People of the Millennium:

1. Lasting Influence 10,000

2. Effect on the sum total of wisdom and beauty in the world: 5,000

3. Influence on contemporaries: 5,000

4. Singularity of contribution: 3,000

5. Charisma: 2,000

Today’s Challenge: Biomania
Each name listed below has his or her biography in 1,000 Years, 1,000 People. Which one person in each of the pairs do you think is rated higher?

1. Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck?

2. Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot?

3. Dwight D. Eisenhower or Winston Churchill?

4. Nicholas Copernicus or Galilieo Galilei?

5. William Shakespeare or Francis Bacon?

6. Charles Darwin or Isaac Newton?

7. Ludwig van Beethoven or Johann Sebastian Bach?

8. Leonardo Da Vinci or Pablo Picasso?

9. Albert Einstein or Thomas Alva Edison?

10. George Washington or Thomas Jefferson?

11. Karl Marx or Mohandas K. Gandhi?

12. Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung?

13. Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan?

14. John Milton or Geoffrey Chaucer?

15. Marco Polo or Ferdinand Magellan?

16. John Calvin or Martin Luther?

17. Charles Dickens or Fyodor Dostoyevsky?

18. Alexander Graham Bell or Marie Curie?

19. Joseph Stalin or Niccolo Machiavelli?

20. Susan B. Anthony or Eleanor Roosevelt?

Quote of the Day: Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. –William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night.

Answers:
1. Ernest Hemingway 388 or John Steinbeck 901
2. Bob Dylan 888 or T.S. Eliot 720
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower 374 or Winston Churchill 38
4. Nicholas Copernicus 18 or Galilieo Galilei 4
5. William Shakespeare 5 or Francis Bacon 412
6. Charles Darwin 7 or Isaac Newton 6
7. Ludwig van Beethoven 10 or Johann Sebastian Bach 35
8. Leonardo Da Vinci 9 or Pablo Picasso 149
9. Albert Einstein 17 or Thomas Alva Edison 28
10. George Washington 22 or Thomas Jefferson 64
11. Karl Marx 14 or Mohandas K. Gandhi 12
12. Sigmund Freud 17 or Carl Jung 146
13. Adolph Hitler 20 or Genghis Khan 43
14. John Milton 53 or Geoffrey Chaucer 62
15. Marco Polo 66 or Ferdinand Magellan 42
16. John Calvin 69 or Martin Luther 3
17. Charles Dickens 70 or Fyodor Dostoyevsky 77
18. Alexander Graham Bell 74 or Marie Curie 75
19. Joseph Stalin 82 or Niccolo Machiavelli 40
20. Susan B. Anthony 139 or Eleanor Roosevelt 141

Sources:
1 – Crutchfield, Roger S. English Vocabulary Quick Reference. Leesburg, VA: LexaDyne Publishers, Inc., 1999.

2 - 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.

May 15: Beatles' Trivia Day

What do Jesus Christ, San Francisco, and a Russian spacecraft have in common? The answer is: The Beatles, who released their last album, Let It Be, in the United States on this date in 1970.

Beatitudes
The story of this odd threesome begins with Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount where he issued his Beatitudes (from Latin beatitudo for 'happiness'). These statements are found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and each begins with the word Blessed ( or Happy), as in "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God."

San Francisco
Flash forward to the West Coast in the 1950s. A group of young writers and artists attempt to rattle the conventional cages of their elders. Through self-expression and social protest they make a name for themselves, and one of them, American writer Jack Kerouac, coins the term beat generation in 1952. As cited in Twentieth Century Words, Kerouac associated the word beat with beatitude: "Beat means beatitude, not beat up."

Sputnik
Five years later, the Russians shock the world with the launch of the first artificial earth satellite. They call their satellite Sputnik, meaning ‘traveling companion.’ When news of the satellite’s launch on October 4, 1957 hits the newspapers, this Russian word is instantly absorbed into the English lexicon.

In 1958, San Francisco columnist Herb Caen blends the ‘beat generation’ with ‘Sputnik’ to create beatnik, a catchy term to describe young bohemians like Jack Kerouac.

Two years later across the Atlantic, a fledging group of musicians from Liverpool, England settle on the name Beatles. Despite John Lennon’s claim that the name came to him in a vision of a man riding on a flaming pie, it appears more likely that the name was influenced by one of John’s favorite bands, Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Looking for something catchy, they originally used Beetles, but no doubt the pun value of ‘beat’ got the better of them, influencing them to become the Beatles with an A.

Unlike Sputnik, the British band’s name did not become an instant household word. Their launch had to wait until 1963 when Beatlemania became first a British epidemic and later, in 1964, an American and worldwide pandemic (1).

In 1970, however, the world mourned as the Beatles came crashing to earth. John, Paul, George, and Ringo dissolved what was without a doubt the most popular, successful, and influential band of all time.

Even though decades have passed since the breakup of the Beatles, there is no waning of the passion for their music; for example, in the year 2000, 30 years after their breakup, the Beatles’ greatest hits CD Beatles 1 hit number one on the Billboard Album Charts. For Beatles fans, the term Beatles trivia is a contradiction in terms. For them reading about and listening to the Beatles is anything but a trivial pursuit. For the Beatle fan, knowledge about the Beatles is just as important as any other category of E.D. Hirsh’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.

The word trivia has an interesting history in its own right that relates to is roots. Originating from the Latin trivialis, it is made up of tri meaning three and via meaning roads. What do three roads have to do with the modern sense of ‘unimportant tidbits of information’? Where else than at the crossroads would common people meet to exchange weather reports, small talk, and gossip?

Today’s Challenge: Don’t Call It Trivia
See if you can answer the vital Beatles questions below.

1. What poet, read during his childhood, did John Lennon credit with his creative wordplay in such songs as "I Am the Walrus"?

2. What solo album by Paul McCartney got its title from John Lennon’s story about the vision that inspired the naming of the Beatles?

3. Although Let It Be was the last album release by the Beatles, it was not the last that they recorded; what was the last album they recorded together?

4. What Beatle catchphrase did Paul McCartney’s father object to because of its non-standard usage?

5. What is the name of the record label created by the Beatles that went to court to fight the dilution of its trademark against a computer company?

6. What Beatle song is the anthem for frustrated writers?

7. What was the title of the first book published by John Lennon in 1964?

8. Which Beatle said, "I am alive and well and concerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know"?

9. Which Beatle said, "I hardly ever alter anything because I'm selfish about what I write, or big-headed about it. Once I've written it, I like it. And the publisher sometimes says, 'Should we leave this out, or change that?' and I fight like mad, because once I've done it I like to keep it. But I always write it straight off. I might add things when I go over it before it's published, but I seldom take anything out. So it is spontaneous"?

10. What Beatles’ song and movie got its title from a Ringo Star malapropism?

Quote of the Day: Why tell me why did you not treat me right? Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight! -- from the Beatles’ song "I’m Looking Through You."

Answers: 1. Lewis Carroll 2. Flaming Pie 3. Abbey Road 4. yeah, yeah, yeah 5. Apple Records 6. Paperback Writer 7. In His Own Write 8. Paul McCartney 9. John Lennon 10. A Hard Day's Night

Sources:
1- Ayto, John. Twentieth Century Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

May 14: Native American Words Day

Today is the anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first English speaking settlement in the New World. Three ships arrived on May 14, 1607 at a wooded island island in the James River. Life was not easy for these English settlers, and they almost succumbed to the same fate as an earlier group of settlers at Roanoke. That group had landed off the coast of North Carolina in 1584 and by 1590 had vanished without a trace. The settlers at Jamestown were more lucky; in 1610 Lord De La Warr (Delaware) arrived in time to resupply the 35 remaining colonists (1, 2).

The natives peoples of what is now the United States spoke hundreds of different languages, and although English has never been declared the official language of the United States, it certainly has supplanted all native languages. There are, however, a few words from the native peoples that were adopted into English; most of these were adopted in the period of early colonization by settlers like those at Jamestown. For the most part these words are from the Algonquian dialects and reflect Indian names for plants and animals or unique artifacts and social practices of Indian life.

The word moose is one example to describe the very large northern deer. Another example is succotash which originates from the Algonquian word meaning 'cooked corn kernels.'

Today's Challenge: New World Words
Below are examples of native words in their original spellings. See if you can detect the modern English equivalents of these words.

1. isquoutersquash
2. ocheck
3. arathkon
4. segakw
5. pakan
6. pawcohiccora
7. aposum
8. mohkussin (3)

Quote of the Day: Power is sweet, it is a drug, the desire for which increases with habit. --Bertrand Russell

Answers: 1. squash 2. woodchuck 3. Raccoon 4. skunk 5. pecan 6. hickory 7. opossum 8. moccasin

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

2 - Flavell, Linda and Roger. The Chronology of Words and Phrases. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 1999.

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

May 11: Classic Movie Lines Day

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was founded on this day in 1927. The mission of this professional organization is the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures.

The AMPAS is best known for its annual ceremony the Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars. By the time of the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1928, movies had become a vital part of the culture.

Below are examples of movie-related words that entered the language as motion pictures evolved into a staple of modern life:

cinema (1909)

feature film (1911)

movie (1912)

talkie (1913)

movie house (1914)

movie theater (1915)

movie star (1914)

Hollywood (1926)

flick (1926)

Oscar (1936) (1)

In an essay entitle "Yadda Yadda Doo" from his book The Way We Talk Now, Geoffrey Nunberg compares the lifespan of movie lines to television catch phrases. According to Nunberg, television catch phrases come and go, like the shows from which they spawn. But movie lines have a longer life, and when they enter the language, they take on a life of their own; for example, "a lot of people use the line ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges,’ but not many of them could identify it as a quote, or actually a misquote, from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (2). Like dead metaphors, movie lines become imbedded in the cultural vocabulary of all of us.

Today’s Challenge: "We’ll Always Have the Movies."

The following classic movie lines are from the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 Movie Lines of All Time. See if you can identify the movie that goes with each line (3).

1. #11 What we've got here is failure to communicate.

2. #16 They call me Mister Tibbs!

3. #29 You can't handle the truth!

4. #32 Round up the usual suspects.

5. #50 Houston, we have a problem.

6. #64 Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

7. #95 Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.

8. #100 I'm king of the world!

Quote of the Day: Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. --Forrest Gump

Answers: 1. Cool Hand Luke 2. In the Head of the Night 3. A Few Good Men 4. Casablanca 5. Apollo 13 6. Dr. Strangelove 7. Dead Poets' Society 8. Titanic

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

2 Nunberg, Geoffrey. The Way We Talk Now. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.

3. American Film Institute http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/quotes.aspx

May 10: Words from Winston Churchill Day

On this day in 1940, Winston Churchill took the office of British Prime Minister, replacing Neville Chamberlain. On the same day Hitler began his Western offensive, storming into Holland and Belgium with 136 German divisions. By June 15, 1940, the Germans were in Paris, and the fate of the English speaking people and civilization itself was in the hands of Sir Winston Churchill.

Through his leadership, his optimistic voice, and, possibly most important, his words, Churchill helped the British to rally against the dark threat of Nazi Germany.

Three days after taking the helm of Prime Minister, Churchill entered the House of Commons to a lukewarm reception. In a brief speech, Churchill demonstrated the indomitable spirit that would continue to buoy the spirits of the British people as they faced the threat of Nazi domination.

Here is an excerpt from his address:

I say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

Let that be realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal.

I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

For the complete text of Churchill’s address, visit http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill.htm

According to Gretchen Ruben, author of Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, the Prime Minster’s greatest strength was his genius with words. Churchill clearly understood the power of words. He once said, "Words are the only things which last forever." In fact, his words live on; no other author, for example, has more quotations in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

President John F. Kennedy said, "Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."

He had an expansive vocabulary, and although he sometimes used anachronistic words he knew the right time to employ the plain, short Anglo-Saxon lexicon; he said, "Short words are best, and the old words when short are best of all" (1).

In addition to his eloquence and excellent diction, Churchill also is memorable for his ability to use humor when appropriate. One classic example involves English grammar. When an editor objected to his ending a sentence with a preposition, Churchill wrote the following note in the margin: "This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put."

Today’s Challenge: Churchill: Man or Myth?
Read the following quotes below. Some are often attributed to Churchill, but in reality were never said by him. See if you can tell Churchill's true words from his false.

1. "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

2. "The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash."

3. "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."

4. "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

5. "All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true."

6. "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''

7. "We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!"

8. Lady Astor: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee." Winston: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."

Quote of the Day: A speech is like a symphony. It may have three movements but must have one dominant melody. –Winston Churchill

Answers:
1. From a speech Churchill gave on March 5, 1946 Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
2. Not Churchill. Said by Churchill's assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne.
3. Not Churchill
4. Speech made in the House of Commons as the Battle Britain peaked on August 20, 1940.
5. Not Churchill
6. Churchill gave this extremely short speech at his old school, Harrow on October 29, 1941.
7. Churchill’s Speech about Dunkirk given in House of Commons June 4, 1940. 8. Vintage Winston Churchill

1 - Rubin, Gretchen. Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill. New York: Random House, 2003.

May 9: Turn Off the TV Day

Today is the anniversary of a memorable speech by Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to the National Association of Broadcasters. The year was 1961, and Newton did not have many good things to say about commercial television. His speech, where he called television "a vast wasteland," sparked a national debate about the quality, or lack there of, of television programming.

Since Minow’s speech, television has been called the idiot box and the boob tube. Television viewers have become couch potatoes (1979), and the number of channels has grown to more than 500, but "nothing is on."

Here's an excerpt from Minow's indictment:

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you -- and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.

To see the entire speech go to: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm

While Minow’s phrase "a vast wasteland" caught on, his speech certainly did not discourage the growth of television sets in American homes. In an age of reality television, satellite television, and 24-hour sports and cable new stations, television is more popular than ever.

One question that has been asked by educators since the advent of commercial television is: What is the relationship between television viewing and reading? One particularly interesting answer to this question was given by Norman Mailer in the January 23, 2005 edition of Parade Magazine. In the article Mailer says that the one thing that he would do to change America for the better would be to get rid of television commercials. Mailer argues that the constant interruptions of commercials disrupt our children’s ability to read effectively by denying them something that is necessary for reading: concentration.

Here is an excerpt from Mailer’s Parade essay:

Television is seen as the culprit, since the ability to read well is directly related to one’s ability to learn. If it is universally understood that the power to concentrate while reading is the royal road to knowledge, what may not be perceived as clearly is how much concentration itself is a species of psychic strength. It can be developed or it can go soft in much the manner that body muscle can be built up or allowed to go slack. The development of physical ability is in direct relation to use. Reading offers its analogy. When children become interested in an activity, their concentration is firm—until it is interrupted. Sixty years ago, children would read for hours. Their powers of concentration developed as naturally as breathing. Good readers became very good readers, even as men and women who go in for weight-lifting will bulk up. The connection between loving to read and doing well in school was no mystery to most students . . . . On the major networks, the amount of time given to commercials and other promotional messages increased by 36 percent from 1991 to 2003. Each of the four major networks now offers 52 minutes of commercials in the three hours from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day. It is equal to saying that every seven, 10 or 12 minutes, our attention to what is happening on the tube is cut into by a commercial. It is as bad for most children’s shows. Soon enough, children develop a fail-safe. Since the child knows that any interesting story will soon be amputated by a kaleidoscope of toys, food, dolls, clowns, new colors and the clutter of six or seven wholly different products all following one another in 10-, 20- and 30-second spots all the way through a three-minute break, the child also comes to recognize that concentration is not one’s friend but is treacherous. For soon enough, attention will be turned inside out. The need to get up and move can become a frantic if routine response for highly keyed children. Other kids, stupefied by the onslaught of a quick series of ads that have nothing to do with each other, suffer a dire spiritual product—stagnation. They sit on the couch in a stupor, they eat and drink, and alarms are sounded through the nation. Our children are becoming obese.

To see the complete text of Mailer's article go to: http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_01-23-2005/featured_0

Today’s Challenge: Trivial TV Tidbits
It should be noted that no one on the Word Daze staff has owned a television since 1992. In fact nowhere in the palatial offices of Word Daze Plaza is there anything resembling an idiot box. Try your hand at the questions below, and congratulate yourself if you get none of them correct.

1. What word uttered repeatedly by Homer Simpson was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001?

2. Who was on the cover of the first edition of TV Guide, published on April 3, 1953?

3. What is the most watched TV episode of all time?

4. What TV Theme song hit number one on the Billboard charts in 1976?

5. "I’ll see you all in the cafeteria." Is the final line of what TV series?

6. What country watches the most TV?

7. What was the first image shown on television?

8. What was the first TV series to broadcast a rerun?

9. What television series features a boat named after Newton Minow?

Quote of the Day: Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done. --Fred Allen

Grobman, Paul. Vital Statistics: An Amazing Compendium of Factoids, Minutiae, and Random Bits of Wisdom. New York: Plume Books, 2005.

Answers: 1. "Doh" 2. Desi Arnez, Jr. 3. MASH 4. Welcome Back, Kotter 5. Seinfled 6. Japan (an average of 4 hours, 29 minutes) 7. A statue of Felix the Cat 8. Dick Tracy 9. Gilligan's Island (the S.S. Minow)

May 1: Paradox Day

Today is the anniversary of the 1961 publication of the Joseph Heller novel Catch-22. In the novel the anti-hero Captain Yossarian serves in the United States Air Force on a Mediterranean island near Italy during World War II. In order to survive the war, Yossarian attempts to avoid flying on the dangerous bombing missions. His efforts are thwarted, however, by the paradoxical rule called Catch-22, explained in the following excerpt from the novel:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

According to Twentieth Century Words, the expression catch-22 to refer to "a supposed law or regulation containing provisions which are mutually frustrating" began to gain widespread use in the 1970s after the release of a film version of the novel in 1970 (1). The fact that the title of a novel took on a life of its own and developed a generic meaning in the language is a unique occurrence. For example, even a person who has never heard of Yossarian or Heller’s novel might be aware of the expression. After a job interview, for example, a frustrated teenager might return home and tell his mother: "They won’t hire me unless I have experience, but how can I get experience if no one will hire me? I’m caught in a catch-22."

A catch-22, then, is a 'damed if you do, damed if you don't' type of situation. It's a no-win situation; a chicken and egg problem that traps you in a double bind of circular logic wrapping around a conundrum. In other words, it's a kind of paradox.

A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself, yet is true. In a paradox, truth and falsehood collide and synthesize into wisdom. Great quotes, great poetry, and great speeches of all kinds are full of paradox. The etymology of paradox is Greek paradoxon meaning conflicting with expectation. For an excellent anthology of paradoxes, get the book Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths. In this book Dr. Mardy Grothe has collected over one thousand examples of paradoxical quotes, including the following one from Joseph Heller: When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

Today’s Challenge: True Lies
The paradoxical quotes below are from classic literary authors. See if you can guess the author of each quote:

1. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

2. I must be cruel only to be kind.

3. Even amongst men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

4. Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

5. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.

6. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

7. I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

8. The best place to hide anything is in plain view.

9. He is an honorable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly reasonable man.

10. The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us most often are the very ones that end us.

Quote of the Day: If you want to be true to life, start lying about it. -- John Fowles

1. William Shakespeare 2. William Shakespeare 3. Joseph Heller 4. Aldous Huxley 5. Ken Kesey 6. George Orwell 7. J. D. Salinger 8. Edgar Allen Poe 9. Charles Dickens 10. John Fowles

Sources:
1- Ayto, John. Twentieth Century Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

2-Grothe, Mardy. Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

April 30: Spellbound Day

Today is the anniversary of the release of the Academy Award nominated documentary Spellbound. The film profiles eight participants in the 1992 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Each profile follows the path each youngster took to the Nationals, showing their hometown, their family, and their study techniques. The most gripping parts of the film, however, are the scenes of competition in the National Spelling Bee. Each contenstant battles the seemingly capricious rules of English spelling, straining to comprehend each obscure word they are presented.

The most successful spellers attempt to bring order out of the chaos of English spelling through dilligent study of Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish words. Each word is pronounced for the competitors, but because of the great disparity between English spelling and pronunciation, a word's etymology is a more reliable source of clues to its correct spelling.

The National Spelling Bee began in 1925, and The Scripps Howard News Service began sponsoring the bee in 1941. The bee began with only 9 contestants and has grown to over 200 participants. Each spring contestants compete for an ever-growing list of prizes, and the last half of the final day's competition is even broadcast live on ESPN.

Another term sometimes used for spelling is orthography. The word is from the Greek: ortho for correct and graphe for writing.

Spelling: The Presidential Debate
Even presidents have weighed in on correct spelling:

It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word! --Andrew Jackson

Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember it, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell well. --Thomas Jefferson

Today's Challenge: Bee All That You Can Bee

Below is a list of winning words from the recent years of the National Spelling Bee. See if you can select the one in each group of three that is correct.

1. 1996 vivisepulture vivicepulture vivissepulture

2. 1997 uonym euonym euuonym

3. 1998 chiaroscurist chiarroscurist chiaroscurrist

4. 1999 logorhea loggorrhea logorrhea

5. 2000 demarch demarche demurch

6. 2001 succedaneum sucedaneum suckendaneum

7. 2002 prospicience prospisiense propiceince

8. 2003 pockocurante pococurante pococurent

9. 2004 autochthonous autokthonous autockthonous

10. 2005 apoggiatura appoggiatura appoggiatura

Today's Quote: Three things you can be sure of in life are death, taxes, and misspelling. --David Grambs

1. vivisepulture 2. euonym 3. chiaroscurist 4. logorrhea 5. demarche 6. succedaneum 7. prospicience 8. pococurante 9 autochthonous 10. appoggiatura

April 29: Thesaurus Day

On this day in 1852, the first edition of Peter Mark Roget’s Thesaurus was published. Roget’s work was a pioneer achievement in lexicography. Instead of listing words alphabetically, as in a dictionary, Roget classified words in groups based on six large classes of words: abstract relations, space, matter, intellect, volition, and affections. Each of these categories is then divided into subcategories, making up a total of 1,000 semantic categories under which synonyms are listed. Like a biologist creating a taxonomy of animal species, Roget attempted to bring a coherent organization to the English word-hoard.

In order to make the categories more accessible, Roget’s son, John Lewis Roget developed an extensive index that was published with the thesaurus in 1879. Roget’s grandson, Samuel Romilly Roget, also worked to edit the thesaurus until 1952.

No one knows for certain how many words there are in the English language, but because of its liberal tradition of borrowing and adopting words from any language it rubs up against, there are more words in English than in any other language. In fact there are so many more in English that it is unlikely that the idea of a thesaurus would even be conceived of for a language other than English.

Roget continued the English tradition of borrowing words when he selected a Greek word for the title of his collection: thesauros which means treasury or storehouse.

Like the association of Webster with dictionaries, Roget’s name has become synonymous with thesauri (the irregular plural of thesaurus). Also like Webster, the name Roget is no longer under trademark; therefore, just because a thesaurus is called Roget’s does not mean it has any affiliation with the original work of the Roget family (1).

Roget’s original title for his work was The Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition. No Thesaurus Day can be complete without reading Peter Roget’s original Preface to his monumental work:

It is now nearly fifty years since I first projected a system or verbal classification similar to that on which the present Work is founded. Conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my own deficiencies, I had, in the year 1805, completed a classed catalogue of words on a small scale, but on the same principle, and nearly in the same form, as the Thesaurus now published. I had often during that long interval found this little collection, scanty and imperfect as it was, of much use to me in literary composition, and often contemplated its extension and improvement; but a sense of the magnitude of the task, amidst a multitude of other avocation, deterred me from the attempt. Since my retirement from the duties of Secretary of the Royal Society, however, finding myself possessed of more leisure, and believing that a repertory of which I had myself experienced the advantage might, when amplified, prove useful to others, I resolved to embark in an undertaking which, for the last three or four years, had given me incessant occupation, and has, indeed, imposed upon me an amount of labour very much greater than I had anticipated. Notwithstanding all the pains I have bestowed on its execution, I am fully aware of its numerous deficiencies and imperfections, and of its falling far short of the degree of excellence that might be attained. But, in a Work of this nature, where perfection is placed at so great a distance, I have thought it best to limit my ambition to that moderate share of merit which it may claim in its present form; trusting to the indulgence of those for whose benefit it is intended, and to the candor of critics who, while they find it easy to detect faults, can at the same time duly appreciate difficulties.

P.M. Roget
April 29, 1852

Today’s Challenge: Synonym or Antonym?
Identify the word pairs below as synonyms or antonyms:

1. precarious and secure
2. cursory and thorough
3. destitute and poor
4. turbulence and commotion
5. palpable and intangible
6. erratic and regular
7. neophyte and novice
8. repudiate and accept
9. zenith and summit
10. pillage and plunder
11. hamlet and village
12. admonish and caution
13. fiasco and failure
14. antithesis and dissimilarity
15. euphonious and strident

Today’s Quote: Words too are know by the company they keep. --Joseph Shipley

1. Ant 2. Ant 3. Syn 4. Syn 5. Ant 6. Ant 7. Syn 8. Ant 9. Syn 10. Syn 11. Syn 12. Syn 13. Syn 14. Syn 15. Ant

1 - Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.

April 20: Urban Legends Day

This day is purported by some to be the day that Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin died, but don't believe it. Although all of three of these celebrities shared a background of drug use and rock ‘n roll, they each died on a separate day other than 4/20.

The date and number 420 has somehow evolved to connote drug use, and there are a number of stories related to why, such as the supposed common death date of the trio of dead rock starts alluded to earlier. Other stories claim that the Los Angeles police code for marijuana use in progress is 420, or that the number of chemical compounds in marijuana is 420. Both of these claims are untrue. No one knows for certain the origin of these stories, and this brings us to the topic of urban legends.

An urban legend is defined as a story that is "too good to be true" by Jan Harold Brunvand, a professor at the University of Utah and the world’s expert in collecting and analyzing urban legends. Brunvand says these stories are told "as if they are really true, attributed to a friend of a friend of a friend." Each time the story is told, the basic elements are the same, but the setting and other minor details change.

For example, a friend might tell you about a story he heard from a friend of a friend that goes like this:

There's this man, see, and he dresses up like a little old lady and accosts unsuspecting women in shopping malls. Usually he waits in the car. When the owner of the car shows up, bags in tow, the stranger pleads fatigue and asks her for a ride home. Then the driver notices her passenger's hairy legs, the wig and, oh yeah, the knife!

This is an example of a story that was reported in the Seattle Times on May 4, 1983. It was reported as a rumor that was running up and down the shores of Puget Sound, and no doubt a story that has appeared in various parts of the country if not the world.

Even in a modern, urbanized society, people still love to tell stories. Maybe this is because we were telling stories long before the invention of writing. Urban legends allow even strangers to connect with each other. Another bonus is that they can be easily reconstructed from the basic elements of the tale and don’t need to be told exactly the same way every time. (1)

Urban legends come under the category of folklore: songs, legends, beliefs, crafts, and customs that are passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. An adjective that is frequently used to describe urban legends is apocryphal. The modern definition according to the American Heritage College Dictionary is ‘of questionable authorship or authenticity.’ The roots of the word are from Greek, meaning secret or hidden. The word was used in Latin to describe the books excluded from the cannon of the Old and New Testaments, and these books are still identified today as the Apocrypha.

Today’s Challenge: Truth or Tabloid?

Test your ability to tell fact from fiction by reading the headlines below. Which are tabloid headlines and which are actual true stories? The headlines are taken from Peter Fenton's book Truth or Tabloid? (2).

1. Roger Ebert Wills Smithsonian His Thumbs

2. Blind Man Acts As Lookout In Failed Robber Attempt

3. Tiger’s Roar Paralyzes People

4. Paleontologists Name New Dinosaur For Rock Star

5. High-Tech Wallet Alerts Spouse When It’s Opened.

6. Shy Kids More Likely To Have Loudmouth Parents

7. Author Advocates Training Children Like Cats!

8. Berserk Brides-To-Be Burglarize Bridal Boutique

9. Laughter Therapist Concludes "Clowns Are Downers"

10. Collector Wears Same T-Shirt For Ten Years

Quote of the Day: The good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you cannot possibly do the things you are doing. --Gene Brown

Answers: 1. Tabloid 2. True 3. True 4. True 5. Tabloid 6. Tabloid 7. Tabloid 8. True 9. Tabloid 10. Tabloid

1. - cnn.com
2. - Fenton,Peter. Truth or Tabloid? New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.

April 19: Revolution Day

Today is the anniversary of the "shot heard round the world." In 1775 at Lexington and Concord, 700 British troops confronted 70 Minutemen under the command of Captain John Parker. The Minutemen disregarded the British order to disperse, firing 'The Shot Heard Round the Word.' The American Revolution had begun (1).

In her essay, "To the Victor Belongs the Language," Rita Mae Brown traces the history of the word revolution. The word originally had no political connotations; instead, it was used to describe the revolving of planets in space. According to Brown, the political word of choice in the 14th century was "rebellion," from Latin meaning "a renewal of war."

In the 18th century, the age of the American and French Revolution, the new meaning of revolution began to evolve to include the "overthrow of tyrants." Thus revolution came to embody ideas and action related to political and social change. Brown ends her essay by alluding to the use of the Beatles’ 1969 hit "Revolution" to sell Nike running shoes in the 1980s. This illustrates that overuse of any word can corrupt its original meaning (2).

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous poem, "Concord Hymn," in 1837 to commemorate the first battle of the American Revolution. The poem was specifically written for the dedication of a monument to the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

Today’s Challenge: You Say You Want a Revolution

Match the words from the American Revolution from the person who said them.

1. They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

2. I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

3. I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

4. There, I guess King George will be able to read that.

5. All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

6. The die is now cast; the colonies must either submit or triumph.... we must not retreat.

7. These are the times that try men's' souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; bur that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny.....is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

8. Nothing short of independence, it appears to me, can possibly do. A peace on other terms would..... be a peace of war.

A. King George III
B. Nathan Hale
C. Ben Franklin
D. John Hancock
E. Thomas Jefferson
F. George Washington
G. Patrick Henry
H. Thomas Paine

Quote of the Day: Would that life were like the shadow cast by a wall or a tree, but it is like the shadow of a bird in flight. --Talmud

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

Sources:
1 - http://www.americanrevolution.com/BattleofLexingtonandConcord.htm
2 - Brown, Rita Mae. "To the Victor Belongs the Language." in The Short Prose Reader (4th Edition). Gilbert H. Muller and Harvey S. Wiener editors. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1997.

April 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 recognizible 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

April 17: Notorious Places Day

On this date in 1961, Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government attempted an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The goal of the invasion was the overthrow of the Communist regime of Fidel Castro, who had successfully led a revolution in Cuba in 1959. The invasion was a colossal failure, causing much embarrassment to President John F. Kennedy.

The Bay of Pigs lives on today, not so much as a geographic place, but as a symbol of failure. Like the Bay of Pigs, there are other geographic locations that have entered the language based on the notorious events that occurred there. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions catalogs hundreds of allusions drawn from history, literature, religion, and mythology(1). Each allusion, whether a person, place, or thing, is categorized based on the theme it has come to embody, such as fear, death, or mystery. Among these many allusions are several notorious places -- places that have leapt off the map and entered our language. Today when these places are conjured, we are transported not to a place, but to an idea, such as the military failure at The Bay of Pigs.

The following are other notorious places that have entered the language, emblematic of the negative:

Chappaquiddick: Failure
Siberia and the Gulag Archipelago: Unpleasant or Wicked Places
Little Bighorn: Defeat
Waterloo: Defeat
Alamo: Defeat
Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka: Death and Persecution
Alcatraz: Prisons and Punishment

The sites below are not listed in the Oxford Dictionary of Allusions; however, chances are you will see them used as symbols in the pages of recent newspapers.

Three-mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986): Failure and Accidents
My Lai (1968) Massacre and Death
Kent State (1970) Massacre and Death
Watergate (1972) Scandal and Abuse of Political Power
Abu Ghraib (2003) Abuse and Torture

Today's Challenge: A Place for Everything
Match the ideas below with the specific place that is associated with them.

1. Beautiful music
2. Destruction
3. Lawlessness or unregulated conflict
4. Change and transformation
5. Victory

A. Dodge City
B. The Road to Damascus
C. Arcadia
D. Hiroshima
E. Agincourt

Quote of the Day: Failure never hurt anybody. It is fear of failure that kills you .... You got to go down the alley and take those chances.... --Jack Lemmon

Answers: 1. C, 2. D, 3. A, 4. B 5. E

Source:
1-Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock (Editors). Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

March 29: Words From the Vietnam War Day

On this day in 1975 the last American soldiers left Vietnam, ending a ten-year period in which the United States dropped more bombs than during all of World War II. The long conflict and the many soldiers who fought there returned with both metals and scars, but they also returned with new words that reflected their intense experience in Southeast Asia.

In the book I Hear America Talking, Stuart Berg Flexner defines some of the key terms that came out of the Vietnam War:

Charlie: The term Viet Cong (short for Vietnamese Communist) was shortened by soldiers to V.C. Since the international phonetic alphabet used for communication designated the letter C as Charlie, and V for Victor, the enemy from North Vietnam was frequently designated Charlie.

Click: Military term for kilometer, possibly reflecting the sound of the letter K, the abbreviation for kilometer, or the clicking of a gun sight being adjusted for distance.

Defoliate: The spraying of chemicals or the use of bombs on enemy territory to destroy trees or crops, depriving the enemy of concealment or food.

Domino Theory: The belief that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, its neighbors in Southeast Asia would fall one by one, as in a row of dominoes.

Escalation: As the U.S. presence in Vietnam grew under the leadership of President Johnson, this term was used to describe the increase in troop levels. It is derived from escalator, a trademark name for a "moving staircase."

Fire fight: This term to describe a short engament replaced the common word skirmish.

Fragging: This term is derived from a commonly used weapon of the war, the fragmentation grenade. It became a verb to describe the killing of an officer by use of a grenade or any other means.

Today's Challenge: "I Love the Smell of Vocabulary In the Morning"
Use a good dictionary to look of the meaning of the following words from the Vietnam War. What do they mean, and how are they related to the conflict specifically?

Grunt
Huey
KIA
MIA
My Lai
Pacification
Search-and-destroy

Quote of the Day: Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. –Blaise Pascal

March 28: Eponym Day

An eponym is a word derived from a real or imaginary person. For example, the word shrapnel evolved from Henry Shrapnel, an English artillery officer who developed an exploding shell that sent out bits of metal. Most often the capitalized proper noun that refers to the specific person becomes lowercase as it is transformed into a general noun, adjective, or verb.

So, what makes March 28 a date related to the de-capitalization of words? Well, it just happens to be the birthday of the "Father of Decapitation," Joseph Ignace Guillotine (1738-1814). Ironically, this French physician was against capital punishment. He suggested the beheading device to the French Legislative Assembly with the hope that a more humane and less painful form of execution would be a logical steppingstone to the elimination of capital punishment altogether.

The words capitalization and capital punishment share a common etymology; Cap in Latin means head. Capital as it refers to letters, therefore, means head letter. Capital as it refers to capital punishment means execution by decapitation.

Challenge: Off With Their Head Letters
Use a good dictionary to look up the meanings of the following lowercase words. Also, try to find the complete capitalized first and last names of the people from whom they are derived.

braille
diesel
galvanize
leotard
maverick
nicotine
sandwich
sideburns
watt
zeppelin

Quote of the Day: Two men look through the same bars; one sees the mud, and the other the stars. –Frederick Langbridge

March 27: Alphabet Words Day

Today is the birthday of the Father of the X-ray, German physicist William Conrad Rontgen. The first X-ray produced was of his wife’s hand on the evening of November 8, 1895. In 1901, this X-ray visionary was awarded the very first Nobel Prize in Physics. He did not take out patents on his discovery, nor did he want them to be called "Rontgen Rays." Instead, the rays retained the original designation "X" which Rontgen had used because they were previously unknown. More than a century later, Rontgen’s name became immortalized on the Periodic Table of Elements when the element Roentgenium was named for him in 2004.

Learn more about Rontgen at nobelprize.org

X-ray is just one of a class of interesting words that begin with a capital letter followed by a hyphen. These words are so specialized that there does not even seem to be a clear word to describe them. The closed designation would be Initial based words; for our purposes, we'll use the term alphabet words. The term E-mail (formerly electronic mail) is certainly the most controversial of all alphabet words.

Debate still rages on the Internet about the correct way to write it. Should it be E-mail, e-mail, or email? Current consensus is towards e-mail.

In honor of the X-ray, let’s return to the X-Files. In what is probably the greatest wordplay book of all time The Word Circus, Richard Lederer notes nine different spellings of Rontgen’s letter -- further evidence that English spelling is a mess!

eks: x-ray
gz: exist
gzh: luxurious
k: except
kris: Xmas
ks: hex
ksh: anxious
z: zylophone
Silent letter: faux pas

Today's Challenge: Alphabet Words A-Z
Grab a good dictionary, and see if you can find at least one alphabet word for each letter in the alphabet.

Quote of the Day: Many a friendship -- long, loyal, and self-sacrificing -- rested at first upon no thicker a foundation than a kind word. --Frederick W. Faber

March 26: Metaphors for Life Day

Today is the birthday of American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). Although he enrolled in college, Frost never earned a degree. He worked as a teacher, a cobbler, and an editor. Of course he is best known for his work as a poet, and, next to Shakespeare, he might just be the most quoted and anthologized poet of all time.

For more on the life of Frost, visit The Academy of American Poets at http://www.poets.org.

Like all great poets, Frost explores the universal themes of humanity in his poems. For example, in The Road Not Taken he uses the metaphor of the road to explore the theme of choices made over a lifetime:

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, andI--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost

Today's Challenge -- Life is But a Dream:
In celebration of Frost's life, WLA challenges you to write your own metaphor for life. You can write your metaphor as a poem or write it in complete sentences. The key to a successful metaphor is to show a connection between two words that we normally don't associate with each other. For example, you might compare life to a game, a battle, a classroom, a banana, a building, a race, a book, a fire, an alphabet, or even a lunch box.

Here are two simple steps for writing a metaphor from the best book on poetry writing I know: Writing Poetry by Shelley Tucker (Goodyear Books 1992) :

How to Write a Metaphor

Definition: A metaphor is a comparison between to unrelated nouns.

Step 1. Write out your two unrelated nouns: Example: Life is a song.

Step 2: Expand and elaborate on your metaphor by asking yourself Who? What? When? Where? Why? or How?

Examples:

Life is a song with a consistant melody, but constantly changing lyrics.

Life is a punk rock song -- sung acappella.

Life is a song that you write yourself but that you sing with others.

Quote of the Day: The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. --H.T. Leslie

March 25: Celebration of Greek Roots Day

Today is Greek Independence Day. After rebelling against the imperial rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks declaired their independence on March 25, 1821. Whether or not we have Greek ancestors, all of us are indepted to the Greeks for their contributions to civilization; democracy, tragedy, comedy, history, and philosophy are just a sampling Greek inventions that changed the world.

The English language is another area that owes a dept of graititude to the Greeks. While they did not invent the alphabet, the Greeks certainly adapted and perfected it after acquiring it from the Phonecians around 800 B.C. According to David Sacks excellent book, Language Visible: Untraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z, the Greeks' key adaptation was the addition of vowels: "The Greeks bequeathed to the West an alphabet that had been adapted to an Indo-European language (Greek) and was therefore accessible to other European tongues. Specifically, the Greeks had introduced vowel letters -- the equivalents of our A, E, I, O, and U -- where earlier, Semitic versions of the alphabet had contained none. Vowel letters brought the alphabet forward to a point where it could be fitted to most other languages." And of course one of those European tongues was English.

In addition to the "alphabet," the Greeks contributed several other key words used to describe language:

Words about Words and Writing
(Definitions from Success With Words: A Guide to The American Language. Published by Reader's Digest, 1983).

Alphabet: From the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.

Dialect: The regional or social variety of a language.

Etymology: Word history.

Grammar: The structure of language.

Homonym: Words that have the same form but different meaning. Literally "same name."

Idiom: An expression that is traditionally correct but that does not necessarily follow general rules, from idios = private.

Poem: A composition written in meter or rhythm.

Rhetoric: The art of public speaking or the study of effective writing.

Synonym: A word that means the same thing as another.

Syntax: The branch of grammar dealing with the grouping and ordering of words.

Today's Challenge: It's Greek to Me

Grab a dictionary and search out words beginning with the Greek prefixes listed below. Try to find at least three examples for each prefix.

anti (against)
auto (self)
chrono (time)
geo (earth)
hemi (half)
hetero (different)
micro (small)
hydro (water)
philo (love)
phono (sound)
photo (light)
physio (nature)
poly (much, many)
psycho (mind)
tele (distance)

Quote of the Day: Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek. --Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

March 24: Mash-up Day

Today we look at a word that you will not find in the dictionary – yet! According to Newsweek, the word "mash-up" was coined in 2001 by DJ Freelance Hellraiser who used Christian Aguilera’s vocals from ‘Genie in a Bottle’ and "recorded [them] over the instrumentals from ‘Hard to Explain.’" Mash-up is not just a musical term, however. A mash-up applies to any combination of two or more forms of media: music, film, television, computer program, etc.

So what does March 24 have to do with this strange new term? Well, on this date in 1973, Pink Floyd released its groundbreaking Dark Side of the Moon album. Later -- no one really knows when – someone came up with the crazy idea of combining, or ‘mashing,’ the Pink Floyd album with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The fans of this mash-up claim over a 100 different moments where Pink Floyd’s music and lyrics oddly coincide with events and actions in the film. For example, when Mrs. Gulch first appears riding her bicycle, the bells and chimes at the beginning of the song "Time" begin to sound.

To learn more, do a Google search of "Dark Side of the Rainbow." "Mash-up" is just one example of a neologism, a new word that is created to describe some kind of phenomenon, concept, or invention. Some of these words have the lifespan of a common housefly, but others, if they are used enough, eventually are catalogued and included in the English lexicon.

Wordsmiths at the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, have the "rule of five" to guide their decision about whether or not to publish a neologism in the dictionary. According to the rule, the word must be published in at least five different sources over a five-year period. As a result, lexicographers are always reading, searching for potential new additions to the dictionary.

If you want to be ahead of the curve on new words, check out the web site Wordspy.com. The site is maintained by Paul McFedries, a technical writer with an obvious love of language. Here is the description of his site in his own words: Wordspy "is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't 'stunt words' or 'sniglets,' but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources."

Challenge: Mother Tongue Lashing
Here is a lexical mash-up I call Mother Tongue Lashing. It takes advantage of the wealth of compound words and expressions in English. For each pair of words below, name a word that can follow the first word and precede the second one to complete a compound word or a familiar two-word phrase.

Example:
Jelly __________ Bag.

Answer:
Bean - Jelly Bean, Bean Bag

1. Life __________ Travel
2. Punk __________ Candy
3. Green _________ Tack
4. Rest __________ Work
5. Light __________ Book
6. Rock __________ Dust
7. Spelling __________ Sting
8. Night __________ House

Create your own Mother Tongue Lashings. Use a dictionary to make sure that you have two-word expressions or compound words, not just two-word combinations.

Quote of the Day: A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him --Sidney Greenberg

March 23: Meteorological Metaphors Day

Today is World Meteorological Day, celebrating the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization founded in 1950. Weather is literally all around us, but it is also figuratively all around us and in us, especially in our everyday language.

Look at the expressions below:

A port in storm
Chase rainbows
Cloud nine
Cloud of suspicion
Fair-weather friend
Head in the clouds
Greased lightning
Shoot the breeze
A snow job
Steal someone’s thunder
Tempest in a teapot
Under the weather

Each expression refers to an aspect of weather; however, the actual meaning of each expression has nothing to do with literal weather. For example, a "snow job" is an attempted deception, not a task you need a snow shovel for.

On Metrological Metaphor Day, listen to the words people speak around you. Are they borrowing weather adjectives to describe the stormy mood of their boss or the sunny disposition of their best friend? What other adjectives might fit this category: inclement, icy, hazy . . . ? Can you think of more expressions or adjectives to add to the above list?

Challenge: "Over the Rainbow"
Weather might just be the most common metaphor for song writers. List song titles that use weather as a metaphor in the title or the lyrics. Here are the lyrics to a great Bruce Springsteen song to get you started:

Waitin' On A Sunny Day

It's rainin' but there ain't a cloud in the sky
Musta been a tear from your eye
Everything'll be okay
Funny thought I felt a sweet summer breeze
Musta been you sighin' so deep
Don't worry we're gonna find a way

I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day

Without you I'm workin' with the rain fallin' down
Half a party in a one dog town
I need you to chase the blues away
Without you I'm a drummer girl that can't keep a beat
And ice cream truck on a deserted street
I hope that you're coming to stay

I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day

Hard times baby, well they come to tell us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day
Your smile girl, brings the mornin' light to my eyes
Lifts away the blues when I rise
I hope that you're coming to stay

Quote of the Day: Time is a storm in which we are all lost. --William C. Williams

March 22: Poetry 180 Day

Today is the birthday of American poet Billy Collins. He was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-2003. Born in 1941 in Queens, New York, Collins didn’t publish his first book, The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988), until he was in his forties.

As poet laureate, Collins created a unique anthology to revive verse in American schools, called Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. With this program Collins set out to end the notion that high school is "the place where poetry goes to die." Instead, he wanted students to see that poetry was meant to be read for enjoyment, read aloud over the school intercom, and shared. In short, Collins hoped to "suggest to young people the notion that poetry can be a part of everyday life as well as a subject to be studied in the classroom."

Collins published a second anthology of poems in 2005 so that readers can enjoy year-round poetry. It’s called: 180 More: Extraordinary Poems.

To visit Poetry 180 online go to: www.loc.gov/poetry/180/ To honor Poetry 180 Day and Billy Collins vision, read at least one poem aloud. Read it to your family at dinner, read it to your colleagues around the water cooler, or grab a megaphone and shout it from the rooftops!

Here’s a short poem to get you started:

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
--Robert Frost

Today's Challenge: Today is also the birthday of Canadian actor William Shatner (born 1931). In honor of the man who brought us Where. No. Man. Has. Gone. Before. Select a short poem and recite it like the captain – as though Every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence.

Quote of the Day: Every word was once a poem. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

March 21: New Words from the '50s Day

The decade of the '50s was full of changes is culture and technology; these changes impacted the English language in the form of neologisms, new words that eventually entered the dictionary and our everday English lexicon. One prime example is rock 'n' roll.

Today is the anniversary of the first rock concert, held in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 21, 1952. The concert, called the Moondog Coronation Ball, was organized by Alan Freed, Cleveland disc jockey and reported originator of the now classic Americanism "Rock and Roll." Freed organized the event in honor of his loyal listeners, the Moondoggers, and himself, the King of the Moondoggers. Tickets were under $2.00, but counterfeiting of tickets created confusion, fights, and chaos in the Cleveland Arena. Legitimate ticket holders attempted to force their way into the arena, resulting in broken doors and windows. After only one song, by John "Hucklebuck" Williams, fire marshals shut the entire concert down.

On this date, which some mark as the birthday of rock ‘n’ roll, we honor the many new words that came out of the 1950s.

The Oxford Press book of 20th Century Words lists the following examples of words that entered the dictionary in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Decade:

A.S.A.P.
Backlash
Beatnik
Big Bang
Biological clock
Brain-washing
Charisma
Cinerama
Cowabunga
Credit card
Dee-jay
Discotheque
Disinformation
Fast food
Freudian slip
Junk mail
Lego
Ms
Murphy’s law
Nerd
RAM
Sci-fi
Scrabble
-speak
UFO
-ville
Walter Mitty
World War III
Xerox

Today's Challenge: List as many words, phrases, or associations as you can for the word "rock."

Quote of the Day: Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards. --Keith Richards.

February 16: Sports Quotes Day

Today is the birthday of tennis great John McEnroe. He was born in 1959 in Germany where his father was serving in the U.S. Army. McEnroe is remembered not only for his masterful play as a singles champion, but also for his many victories in doubles and mixed doubles. His most memorable play came at Wimbledon in the 1980s where he battled Bjorn Borg.

Although he won many major tennis titles and spent many years as the number one ranked tennis player in the world, John McEnroe is most remembered for his words and antics on the tennis court. Smashing tennis rackets and challenging umpire decisions, McEnroe became one of the most volatile and boisterous athletes ever.

Perhaps his best known line was one shouted in the direction of an umpire at Wimbledon in 1981: "You cannot be serious!" This line became so often associated with McEnroe, that he used it for the title of his 2002 autobiography (1).

Today's Challenge: The Sports Section

Great writers aren't the only ones with profound things to say. Below are some famous quotes by athletes and coaches. See if you can identify the speaker of each quote.

1. Football is like life -- it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.

2. Bear Bryant could take his'n and beat your'n, or he could take your'n and beat his'n.

3. Sports Do Not Build Character...They Reveal It.

4. There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts. The busier you keep yourself with the particulars of shot assessment and execution, the less chance your mind has to dwell on the emotional. This is sheer intensity.

5. Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.

6. I wouldn't ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important -- like a league game or something.

7. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

8. You can't climb to the second floor without a ladder. Try for a goal that's reasonable, then gradually raise it.

Quotes of the Day:

-If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead. - Erma Bombeck

-If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base. - Dave Barry

Answers:

1. Vince Lombardi
2. Bum Phillips
3. John Wooden
4. Jack Nicklaus
5. Yogi Berra
6. Dick Butkus
7. Jesse Owens
8. Emil Zatopek

Sources:

1 - The Biography Channel "John McEnroe." http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/141:459/1/John_McEnroe.htm

January 1: Janus Day

Happy New Year!

On the first day of the year it is appropriate to explore the origins of the name January.

The Roman god Janus was the god of doorways, gates, and portals as well as the god of beginnings. Janus was depicted with two faces, one looking back to the past and one looking toward the future. As we look back on the year that just finished and look forward to the coming year, it becomes clear why Janus became the name-sake of our first month.

As the gatekeeper, Janus is also the source of the word Janitor. If you've been to a school lately you can see the appropriateness of this moniker; long after the students, teachers, and principal go home, there is a faithful janitor making his or her appointed rounds which include make sure doors are locked and secured (1).

Today's Challenge: The Beginning and the End
Ten of the 20 words below relate to beginnings. The remaining words related to endings. See if you can identify how each word relates to either the beginning or the end.

prologue
denouement
finale
fledgling
neophyte
epilogue
inaugurate
omega
initiate
exposition
prelude
alpha
terminate
culminate
terminus
postlude
cessation
genesis
commencement
epitaph

Quote of the Day: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But, it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. --Winston Churchill

Sources:

1 - Word Histories and Mysteries. (by the editors of American Heritage Dictionaries. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

Answers:
Beginnings: prologue, inaugurate, genesis, commencement, initiate, exposition, prelude, alpha, fledgling, neophyte

Endings: epilogue, terminate, culminate, denouement, finale, omega, terminus, postlude, apocalypse, cessation, epitaph

December 31: Spam Day

On this date in the 1930s, Jay Hormel hosted a New Year's Eve party where he challenged his guests to create a name for his latest invention, a canned pork product.

On that night not only was a new year born, but also one of the most successful and most recognizable brand names in history came into being: Spam. The winning name was formed from the contraction of
sp(iced h)am; the winner of the contest was awarded $100.

Thanks to a sketch and song from Monty Python's Flying Circus, the word Spam lost its capital letter and became a lower case common noun referring to unsolicited e-mail. In the sketch, which first appeared in 1970, a waitress recites a list of menu items, all including Spam. As the menu is being recited, a song begins where male voices chant the word Spam more than 100 times. It's this seemingly endless, repetitive chant that inspired computer users to select spam as the appropriate appellation for unwanted, disruptive email (1).

Today's Challenge: New Year, New Words
At your New Year's Eve party challenge your guests to create a new word for the coming year. You might even offer cans of Spam as the award. To get your guests warmed up, give them the following challenge:

Each year the American Dialect Society selects a new word or phrase that best typifies the year just passed. The following list contains the Words of the Year for the past ten years, 1996 to 2005. See if you can match up each word with its correct year:

9/11

red state

metrosexual

truthiness

millennium bug

chad

soccer mom

Y2K

e- (prefix as in e-mail)

weapons of mass destruction (1)

Quote of the Day: If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam. --Johnny Carson

Sources:
Steinmetz, Sol and Barbara Ann Kipfer. The Life of Language. New York: Random House, 2006.

Answers:

9/11 - 2001
red state - 2004
metrosexual - 2003
truthiness -2005
millennium bug -1997
chad 2000
soccer mom 1996
Y2K 1999
e- (prefix as in e-mail) 1998
weapons of mass destruction 2002

December 25: Christmas

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE:

R P C D T G H V J X N O B

Q A E U I W K Z F M S Y

December 2: Two-word Allusions from American History

Two speeches given by American presidents on this date in the 1800s launched key ideas that would influence the growth and influence of the United States in history.

The first speech, given on December 2, 1823 by President James Monroe, launched the Monroe Doctrine. In his State of the Union Address, Monroe announced that the United States would frown upon any further interference or colonization of the Americas by foreign powers (1).

The second speech, given on December 2, 1845 by President James Polk, launched the term Manifest Destiny. In his State of the Union Address, Polk made it clear that he was committed to the expansion of the United States through the annexation of Texas, the acquisition of the Oregon territory, and the purchase of California from Mexico. Although he did not use the term Manifest Destiny in his speech, the term, originally coined by journalist John L. O'Sullivan, became the operative term to describe the expansion of the young nation, which happened to be the primary subject of Polk's speech (2).

Today's Challenge: Two Words - American History
Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine are just two examples of several two-word appellations for key events/ideas in American history. Given groups of three, two-word terms below, see if you can put them in correct chronological order.

1.
Teapot Dome
Wounded Knee
Mayflower Compact

2.
Great Society
Scopes Trial
XYZ Affair

3.
Shay's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion
Whiskey Rebellion

4.
New Deal
free soil
free silver

Quote of the Day: The whole enterprise of this nation, which is not an upward, but a westward one, toward Oregon, California, Japan, etc., is totally devoid of interest to me, whether performed on foot, or by a Pacific railroad.... It is perfectly heathenish,—a filibustering toward heaven by the great western route. No; they may go their way to their manifest destiny, which I trust is not mine.... I would rather be a captive knight, and let them all pass by, than be free only to go whither they are bound. What end do they propose to themselves beyond Japan? What aims more lofty have they than the prairie dogs? --Henry David Thoreau

Sources:

1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_doctrine

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

Answers:
1.
Mayflower Compact
Wounded Knee
Teapot Dome

2.
XYZ Affair
Scopes Trial
Great Society

3.
Bacon's Rebellion
Shay's Rebellion
Whiskey Rebellion

4.
free soil
free silver
New Deal

December 1: Basketball Metaphors

Today is the anniversary of the first basketball game played in 1891. At the time there was very little hoopla (no pun intended) about this first game. Instead it was just another in a long string of invented games by James Naismith, a physical education instructor at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass.

Looking for a rigorous indoor game for his students, Naismith first tried to adapt lacrosse and football, but he didn't have much success until he tried nailing two peach baskets to balconies on either side of the gymnasium court. The success of this game that Naismith called Basket Ball was not assured, however. In fact as recorded in Naismith's own diary the first review for the game was less than enthusiastic: "Huh. Another new game," was the response of one of Naismith's students.

The rules and apparatus of the game evolved over time. Naismith added a backboard so that people in the balcony couldn't swat away the shots of the opposing team. Also, the bottom of the peach basket was eventually removed, significantly increasing the speed and flow of the game. Many of Naismith's students went on to become instructors in newly opened YMCA centers around the country, and although their initial reaction was rather ho-hum, they seemed to like the game enough to teach it to their own pupils (1).

One indication of the popularity of any game is when the game's jargon becomes a metaphor used outside of the game for everyday situations in real life. From basketball there are two significant examples of this phenomenon: slam dunk and my bad.

Slam dunk, which was later shortened to dunk, became the operative basketball term for stuffing the ball into the basket with either one or two hands. The term leapt from the gym to the world of business and government to mean figuratively any sure thing. The most famous example of its use as a metaphor comes from former CIA Director George Tenet. When asked by the Bush administration in 2001 whether or not the public could be convinced to go to war in Iraq, Tenet famously responded: "It's a slam dunk case!"

My bad is a colloquial phrase that originated on the asphalt courts of the inner-city where it is used as pick-up basketball shorthand meaning: Sorry, I make a mistake! This apologetic exclamation entered the off-court vernacular in the 1990s, but further word study will show that a similar expression has been used for centuries, an expression that came not from the sports world, but from the Catholic Church confessional: the Latin expression mea culpa, meaning my fault (2).

Today's Challenge: From Backboard to Boardroom
Below are examples of other basketball terms. What does each term mean? Can you think of a situation in which each term might be used as a metaphor beyond basketball. If you don't know all the terms, check out the Wikipedia entry on Basketball Terms.

flagrant foul

sixth man

Jordan Rules

garbage time

Hack-a-Shaq

pick and roll

flop brick

buzzer beater (3).

Quote of the Day: Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up. --Red Auerback

Sources:

1 - http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2660882

2 - http://www.bartleby.com/59/4/meaculpa.html

3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Basketball_terminology