Word of the day strikes back

[Richard Frost]

SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2021 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

flummoxed
[ fluhm-uhkst ]
adjective

utterly bewildered, confused, or puzzled.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF FLUMMOXED?
Flummoxed, “utterly bewildered or confused,” ought to leave you flummoxed. The word is a colloquialism, the past participle or adjective of the verb flummox, where the trail turns cold. Flummox has no firm etymology, but it may come from or be akin to British dialect (Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, all of which border on Wales) flummox, flummocks “to hack, to mangle,” or the noun flummock “a sloven,” or the verb flummock “to confuse, bewilder.” The verb, spelled flummux’d, first appears in 1833 in England with the meaning “backed down, backed out of a promise, disappointed.”

HOW IS FLUMMOXED USED?
The lost hour of morning light meant they had to rush to get their crops to market. Dairy farmers were particularly flummoxed: Cows adjust to schedule shifts rather poorly, apparently.

RACHEL FELTMAN, "5 MYTHS ABOUT DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME," WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 6, 2015

But scientists here are flummoxed. While they presume green turtle numbers are declining, they have no idea how quickly, or where, or how best to protect them.

CRAIG WELCH, "SEARCHING FOR ELUSIVE GREEN SEA TURTLES IN THE PERSIAN GULF," NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, JUNE 16, 2018

[Richard Frost]

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2021 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

lickety-split
[ lik-i-tee-split ]
adverb

at great speed; rapidly.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF LICKETY-SPLIT?
The adverb lickety-split, “at great speed; rapidly,” was originally and remains mostly a colloquialism. The origin of lickety is fanciful—an extension of lick “to move quickly, run at full speed.” And split means “fraction,” as in split second. Lickety-split entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

HOW IS LICKETY-SPLIT USED?
Well, pretty soon, after we had got down to level country and were making the speedometer earn its board, I happened to look around and, good night, there was an automobile coming along lickety-split, about a quarter of a mile behind us.

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH, ROY BLAKELEY'S SILVER FOX PATROL, 1920

You will pay very little, and your coffee, pancakes or waffles will arrive lickety-split on your red-checked tablecloth. At the next table may be a tug crew, a film company or even the First Lady.

JEANNETE BELLIVEAU, "OUTER STORM, INNER HARBOR," WASHINGTON POST, JULY 20, 1994

[Richard Frost]

Tuesday 16th March - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/miasma

miasma
[ mahy-az-muh, mee- ]

noun, plural mi·as·mas, mi·as·ma·ta [mahy-az-muh-tuh, mee-].

noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere.
a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.

[Sarah]

Word of the day from Susie Dent today:

Word of the day is 'throttlebottom': a bumbling, inept individual in public office.

(Named after Alexander Throttlebottom, a character in the 20th-century musical comedy 'Of Thee I Sing').

https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1 ... 50531?s=20

[Richard Frost]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2021
macushla
[ muh-koosh-luh ]
noun, Irish English.

darling.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF MACUSHLA?
Macushla is a phonetic English spelling of the Erse (Irish Gaelic) mo chuisle, literally “my pulse,” or translated more romantically, “my heartbeat, my sweetheart, darling.” The mo-, ma– in macushla, mo chuisle means “my”; cushla, chuisle “pulse, heartbeat, vein,” comes from an earlier Erse cuisle, of uncertain etymology, but most likely a borrowing of Latin pulsus “striking, beating, pulse.” Cuisle appears in another Irish idiom: a chuisle “my dear, darling,” in full, a chuisle mo chroí, literally, “pulse of my heart.” (The phrase Mother Machree “Mother dear” entered English in the first half of the 19th century.) The a is the Gaelic vocative particle, a particle used in direct address, and equivalent to English exclamation O. Chroí “heart” comes from Old Irish crid-, which closely resembles Welsh craidd, Latin cord-, Greek kard-, and Hittite karts, all meaning “heart.” Macushla entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

HOW IS MACUSHLA USED?
Come, macushla, come, as in ancient times / Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes.

GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL, "SONG," THE EARTH BREATH AND OTHER POEMS, 1897

To hear teenagers quietly speaking Irish. To read Maurice O’Sullivan’s Twenty Years A-Growing. To find out that the endearment “macushla” comes from the Irish word for pulse. These are the things that would encourage a person to look more closely at the Irish language.

"BROKEN SYNTAX IDENTITY OF A NATION TONGUE-TIED BY IRISH," IRISH TIMES, MARCH 17, 2008

[Richard Frost]

Thursday March 18th

cir·​cum·​lo·​cu·​tion | \ ˌsər-kəm-lō-ˈkyü-shən \

Definition of circumlocution

1: the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea
had no patience with diplomatic circumlocutions

2: evasion in speech

In The King's English, grammarian H.W. Fowler advised, "Prefer the single word to the circumlocution." Alas, that good advice was not followed by the framers of "circumlocution." They actually used two terms in forming that word for unnecessarily verbose prose or speech. But their choices were apt; circumlocution derives from the Latin circum-, meaning "around," and locutio, meaning "speech - so it literally means "roundabout speech." Since the 15th century, English writers have used "circumlocution" with disdain, naming a thing to stop, or better yet, to avoid altogether. Charles Dickens even used it to satirize political runarounds when he created the fictional Circumlocution Office, a government department that delayed the dissemination of information and just about everything else.

Examples of circumlocution in a Sentence
He was criticized for his use of circumlocution.
I'm trying to avoid circumlocutions in my writing.

Recent Examples on the Web
But the national crisis in policing and the response to it isn’t a matter of arid elite debate or familiar political circumlocution and compromise anymore.

— David Roth, The New Republic, "Twilight of the Cop Consensus," 11 June 2020

These circumlocutions are meant to emphasize the fact that Africans traded like chattel were not, in their essence, slaves but human beings.
— Lionel Shriver, Harper's magazine, "Lefty Lingo," 25 Nov. 2019

First Known Use of circumlocution
circa 1518, in the meaning defined at sense 1

History and Etymology for circumlocution
Middle English circumlocucyon, from Latin circumlocution-, circumlocutio, from circum- + locutio speech, from loqui to speak

[Richard Frost]

Word of the Day : March 19, 2021 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

prevaricate

verb prih-VAIR-uh-kaytPrevNext

Definition
: to deviate from the truth : equivocate

Did You Know?
Prevaricate and its synonyms lie and equivocate all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. Lie is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying that person was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. Prevaricate is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of lie, usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. Equivocate is similar to prevaricate, but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.

Examples

"It amused him to hear the ethical and emotional platitudes of lawyers, to see how readily they would lie, steal, prevaricate, misrepresent in almost any cause and for any purpose." — Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, 1912

"One official reflected to me that leaders are frequently moved to action only when they meet one another in person. Phone calls are simply not the same. It’s too easy to hang up, prevaricate, and turn back to the domestic problems." — Thomas Wright, The Atlantic, 4 Mar. 2020

[Richard Frost]

Word of the Day : March 20, 2021 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

equinox
noun EE-kwuh-nahksPrevNext

Definition
1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic

2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere on earth of approximately equal length

Did You Know?
Equinox descends from aequus, the Latin word for "equal" or "even," and nox, the Latin word for "night"—a fitting history for a word that describes days of the year when the daytime and nighttime are equal in length. In the northern hemisphere, the vernal equinox marks the first day of spring and occurs when the sun moves north across the equator. (Vernal comes from the Latin word ver, meaning "spring.") The autumnal equinox marks the first day of autumn in the northern hemisphere and occurs when the sun crosses the equator going south. In contrast, a solstice is either of the two moments in the year when the sun's apparent path is farthest north or south from the equator.

Examples
"The first recorded New Year’s celebration traces back to Mesopotamia, where 4,000 years ago the ancient Babylonians kicked off an 11-day festival called Akitu on the vernal equinox." — Cody Cottier, Discover (discovermagazine.com), 30 Dec. 2020

"Groundhog Day's origins lie in the ancient European celebration of Candlemas, which is a point midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox—the exact midpoint of astronomical winter." — Doyle Rice, USA Today, 2 Feb. 2021

[Richard Frost]

20th March

SPRING BEGINS
Spring begins on the March or vernal equinox, which is when the amount of sunshine is approximately 12 hours long. The amount of sunlight will incrementally increase until the first day of Summer.

The vernal equinox marks the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator. This is the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator, from south to north. The vernal equinox happens on March 19, 20, or 21 every year in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, this same event marks the beginning of fall. Meteorologists mark the spring from March 1 through May 31st.

PROPOSAL DAY
On March 20th, the days and nights balance and Proposal Day offers an equal opportunity for a marriage proposal. For many, this is the day they’ve been waiting patiently to arrive without success. Others will pop the question suddenly.

Observed on both the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes, this day of proposal making is an opportunity to let the loved one in your life know you are open to a marriage proposal. Where subtle hints have not worked, a more direct approach may be required.

RAVIOLI DAY
On Ravioli Day, celebrate a pasta that is fun and versatile. Observed on March 20th each year, pasta lovers dive in on this food holiday.

Ravioli are a traditional type of Italian filled pasta, made up of a filling sealed between two layers of thin egg pasta dough. Imagine a small meatball tucked, snug inside two cozy layers of delicious pasta dough. That’s basically what ravioli is. Although, a variety of fillings from cheesy to meaty take up that cozy spot in the dough. And the ravioli are usually served in either a broth or with a pasta sauce. A variety of filling recipes are available from cheesy to meaty.

WORLD FLOUR DAY
On March 20th, World Flour Day recognizes the importance of flour in our daily diets and our health. In every part of the world, products made from flour provide daily sustenance for billions of people.

Flour is the main ingredient in delicious foods like pasta, cakes, pastries, bread, and biscuits. For thousands of years, humans have consumed grains ground into flour. Ancient humans gathered the oat kernels growing wild around them. Using a stone tool much like a pestle, they crushed the kernels into a coarse flour.

On this day in History - 20th March

141 6th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1345 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars-conjunction: thought "cause of plague epidemic"
1525 Paris' parliament begins pursuit of Protestants
1569 Duke of Alva leads "tenth penning" in Les Ponts de Cé
1598 Governor of Brittany, Philippe Emmanuel the Duke of Mercœur submits to French King Henry IV at Angers
1600 The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden
1602 United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) forms
1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana
1627 France & Spain sign accord for fighting protestantism
1664 Scientist Robert Hooke is appointed Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London
1697 Willem de Vlamingh returns to Batavia after exploring "South Land"
1703 Akō incident: 46 of the 47 surviving Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master's death in Edo
1739 Iranian ruler Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne
1760 Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings
1774 The British parliament passes first of the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston harbour until colonists would pay for damages following the Boston Tea Party
1800 French army defeats Turks at Helipolis & advance to Cairo
1800 Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London
1813 Lady Hester Stanhope sets out for ancient city of Palmyra, the first western woman to visit
1814 Prince Willem Frederik becomes monarch of Netherlands
1815 Napoleon enters Paris after escape from Elba, begins 100-day rule
1816 US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
1833 US & Siam sign commercial treaty
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published in Boston
1861 An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina
1865 2nd day of Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina
1865 Michigan authorizes workers' cooperatives
1868 Jesse James Gang robs a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, of $14,000
1883 Unity treaty of Paris signed: protects industrial property
1885 Jan Ernst Matzeliger received patent number 274,207 for his lasting machine which creates wood or stone moulds of customers' feet
1885 Yiddish theatre opens in NY with Goldfaden operetta
1886 1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation in Massachusetts
1888 The premiere of the very first Romani language operetta staged in Moscow, Russia.
1890 General Federation of Women's Clubs founded in the United States
1891 53rd Grand National: Irish jockey, trainer Harry Beasley wins aboard 4/1 Come Away
1892 54th Grand National: Capt. Roddy Owen wins aboard 20/1 chance Father O'Flynn
1896 Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
1896 Uprising in Matabeleland
1897 1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in NY
1897 France signs treaty with Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia
1900 US Secretary of State John Hay announces that all nations to whom he sent notes calling for an 'open door' policy in China have essentially accepted his stand
1902 France and Russia issue a joint declaration that approves the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but stipulates that they have the right to protect interests in China and Korea
1906 George Bernard Shaw's "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" premieres in London
1911 National Squash Tennis Association forms (NYC)
1911 Winter Garden Theater opens at 1634 Broadway NYC
1914 1st international figure-skating tournament held in US, New Haven
1916 Allies attack Zeebrugge Belgium
1917 After the sinking of 3 more American merchant ships, US President Woodrow Wilson meets with cabinet, who agree that war is inevitable
1920 1st flight from London to South Africa lands (took 1½ months)
1920 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld
1920 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
1920 Australasian Championships Men's Tennis, Adelaide: Pat O'Hara Wood beats fellow Australian Ronald Thomas 6-3, 4-6, 6-8, 6-1, 6-3
1921 Upper Silesia votes for amalgamation with Germany in a plebiscite that is 63% in favor
1922 USS Langley is commissioned, US Navy's 1st aircraft carrier
1922 WIP-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
1923 Bavarian minister of interior refuses to forbid Nazi Sturm Abteilung
1923 Belgian Senate rejects Dutch University in Ghent
1924 Finnair begins scheduled flight of Helsinki-Tallinn
1930 Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
1930 American fast food restaurant chain "KFC" [Kentucky Fried Chicken] is founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in North Corbin, Kentucky
1931 Bishop Schreiber warns against national-socialism in Berlin
1932 Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kara-Kalpak ASSR
1933 Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed
1934 Rudolf Kuhnold demonstrates radar in Kiel Germany
1934 American all-round female super athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias pitches a hitless inning for Philadelphia A's in their exhibition pre-season baseball game against Brooklyn Dodgers
1937 Franco offensive at Guadalajara, Spain
1937 England beats Scotland, 6-3 at Murrayfield, Edinburgh to clinch the Home Nations Rugby Championship and Triple Crown
1939 7,000 Jews flee German occupied Memel Lithuania
1940 Paul Reynoud becomes French premier
1941 Nazi-German Yugoslav pact drawn
1942 Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik Iceland to Russia
1942 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines
1942 Major German assault on Malta
1943 German U-384 bombed & sinks
1944 2,500 women trample guards and floorwalkers to purchase 1,500 alarm clocks announced for sale in a Chicago Illinois department store
1944 Bus falls off bridge into Passaic River NJ, killing 16
1945 US 70th Infantry Division captures Saarbrucken, immediately prior the invasion of Germany by the western Allies
1947 180 tonne blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
1948 1st live televised musical Eugene Ormandy on CBS followed in 90
1948 20th Academy Awards: "Gentleman's Agreement", Loretta Young, Ronald Colman win
1948 102nd Grand National: 50/1 chance Sheila's Cottage first mare to win the GN for 46 years; ridden by Irish jockey Arthur Thompson
1949 LPGA Titleholders Championship Women's Golf, Augusta CC: Amateur Peggy Kirk wins her only major title by 2 strokes from Patty Berg and Dorothy Kirby
1951 Indonesian army offensive against Darul Islam on Java
1951 Fujiyoshida, a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in the center of the Japanese main island of Honshū is founded
1952 24th Academy Awards: "An American in Paris", Humphrey Bogart & Vivian Leigh win
1952 Final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan by US Senate
1954 "King & I" closes at St James Theatre NYC after 1246 performances
1954 16th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: La Salle beats Bradley, 92-76; Explorers' small forward Tom Gola is named tournament Most Outstanding Player
1954 1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania)
1955 KXTV TV channel 10 in Sacramento, CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1956 E Ochab succeeds Beirut as 1st secretary of Polish CP
1956 Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) explodes
1956 Tunisia gains independence from France
1956 USSR performs nuclear test
1956 Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp
1957 Britain accepts NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus, but Greece rejects it
1958 50" snow across the Mason-Dixon line
1958 Clandestine Burasi Bizim Radio (communist) begins transmitting
1958 Greek Clandestine Radio (communist), Voice of Truth 1st transmission
1962 Sjoukje Dijkstra becomes world champion figure skater
1963 1st "Pop Art" exhibition (NYC)
1964 ESRO established, European Space Research Organization
1965 27th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: UCLA beats Michigan, 91-80; Bruins' back-to-back National titles; Gail Goodrich 42 points
1965 Venkataraghavan takes 8-72 v NZ at Delhi
1965 Civil and Women's Rights Activist Dorothy Height has her first column published in the weekly African-American newspaper called the "New York Amsterdam News"
1965 10th Eurovision Song Contest: France Gall of Luxembourg wins singing "Poupee de cire, poupee de son" written by Serge Gainsbourg in Naples
1965 Wales misses out on a 4th Grand Slam after losing to France, 22-13 at Stade Colombes, Paris despite winning the Five Nations Rugby Championship
1967 The Supremes release "The Happening"
1967 WOET (now WPTD) TV channel 16 in Dayton, OH (PBS) begins broadcasting
1968 LBJ signs a bill removing gold backing from US paper money
1968 Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
1969 Ethiopian athlete Abebe Bikila is paralysed in an auto-accident near Addis Ababa
1971 Boston Bruins win 13th straight NHL game
1971 Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark resigns in protest at what he views as a limited security response by the British government
1972 19 mountain climbers killed on Japan's Mount Fuji during an avalanche
1972 S Mansholt succeeds Malfatti as chairman of European Committee
1972 Donegall Street bombing: the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonate its first car bomb on Donegall Street in Belfast; four civilians, two RUC officers and a UDR soldier killed while 148 people were wounded
1973 Roberto Clemente (Baseball player) elected to Hall of Fame, 11 weeks after his death in a plane crash
1973 NBC TV premiere of pilot episode of "Police Story", based on Los Angeles Police Dept. Joseph Wambaugh's writings
1974 "The Super Cops" directed by Gordon Parks premieres in NYC, New York
1976 Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000m (1:15.70)
1976 Patricia Hearst convicted of armed robbery
1977 Communists and socialists win French municipal elections
1977 Parisians elect former PM Jacques Chirac as 1st mayor in a century
1977 Premier Indira Gandhi loses election in India
1977 PGA Tournament Players Championship, Sawgrass CC: Mark Hayes wins in windy conditions, 2 strokes ahead of runner-up Mike McCullough
1978 Flyers' Rick MacLeash scores on 6th penalty shot against Islanders
1980 The Mi Amigo ship containing England's pirate radio Caroline sinks
1980 US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran
1981 Argentine ex-president Isabel Peron sentenced to 8 years
1981 Jean Harris sentenced 15-to-life for slaying of Scarsdale Diet Dr
1982 1st-class debut of Richie Richardson, Leeward Is v Barbados
1982 France performs nuclear test
1982 Joan Jett & Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" goes #1 for 7 weeks
1982 Rev A Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
1982 France beats Ireland, 22-9 at the Parc des Princes, Paris but the Irish take the Five Nations Rugby Championship with a 3-1 record and also their 5th Triple Crown
1983 In a clash of tennis legends, Martina Navratilova outclasses Chris Evert Lloyd 6-2, 6-0 to win her first of 5 straight WTA Tour Championships at Madison Square Garden, NYC
1984 Andy Kaufman & Fred Blassie's "My Breakfast With Blassie" premieres
1984 Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
1984 Nigerian Major-General Babatunde Idiagbon launches a campaign on ‘National Consciousness and Enlightenment’
1985 Libby Riddles is 1st woman to win Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race
1986 228 KPH gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)
1986 Jacques Chirac forms French government
1986 New York City passes its first lesbian and gay rights legislation
1987 FDA approves sale of AZT (AIDS treatment)
1987 NASA launches Palapa B2P
1987 Soap opera "Capitol" final episode
1987 Soviet filmmakers arrive in Hollywood for an entertainment summit
1987 Yvonne van Gennip skates ladies' world record 5 km (7:20.36)
1988 David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly," premieres in NYC
1988 Defending champion Mike Tyson beats Tony Tubbs by TKO in round 2 at the Tokyo Dome, Tokyo for the undisputed world heavyweight boxing title
1988 Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
1989 Baseball announces Reds manager Pete Rose is under investigation
1989 Richard J Kerr replaces Robert M Gates as deputy director of CIA
1990 LA Lakers retires Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's #33
1990 Singer Gloria Estefan fractures her spine when a truck hits her tour bus near Scranton, Pennsylvania
1991 Court awards Peggy Lee $3 million in suit against Disney
1991 Michael Jackson signs $65M 6 album deal with Sony records
1991 Supreme Court rules unanimously employers can't exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage fetus
1991 US forgives $2 billion in loans to Poland
1992 Janice Pennington is awarded $1.3M for accident on Price is Right set
1992 Manuel Noriega's wife Felicidad arrested for stealing buttons from dresses
1993 Dan Jansen skates world record 500m (36.02 sec)
1993 IRA-bomb kills 3 year old in Warrington, England
1993 France beats Wales, 26-10 at Parc des Princes, Paris for it's 10th outright Five Nations Rugby Championship
1994 "Cyrano - The Musical" closes at Neil Simon NYC after 137 performances
1994 "Flowering Peach" opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for 41 performances
1994 "No Man's Land" closes at Criterion Theater NYC after 61 performances
1994 14th Golden Raspberry Awards: "Indecent Proposal" wins
1994 WrestleMania X, Madison Square Garden, NYC: Bret Hart beats Yokozuna to win WWF Championship
1994 El Salvador's 1st presidential election following 12-year-old civil war
1994 Mashonaland U-24 beat Matabeleland on 1st inning to win Logan Cup
1994 Zulu-king Goodwill Zwelithini founds realm in South Africa
1995 Dow-Jones hits record 4083.68
1995 Members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo release sarin gas on three lines of the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people and injuring over 1,000
1995 Beatles song, "Baby It's You", with late John Lennon as lead singer, released, 1st Fab Four single in nearly 10 years
1996 "Love Thy Neighbor" opens at Booth Theater NYC
1996 Erik & Lyle Menendez found guilty of killing their parents
1996 UK admits humans can catch CJD (Mad Cow Disease)
1997 "Play On!" opens at Brooks Atkinson Theater NYC for 61 performances
1997 Liggett admits cigarettes are addictive
1997 World Mens Figure Skating Championship in Lausanne won by Elvis Stojko of Canada
1999 Legoland, California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California
1999 19th Golden Raspberry Awards: An Alan Smithee Film "Burn Hollywood Burn" wins
2000 Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after a gun battle that leaves a Georgia sheriff's deputy dead
2000 Pope John Paul II visits Holy Land - Jordan, Israel, Palestine
2001 Petrobras 36 Oil Platform, the world's largest oil rig, sinks with 400,000 US gallons of fuel and crude oil aboard, after suffering three explosions on March 15
2002 16th Soul Train Music Awards: The O'Jays, Dr. Dre & Alicia Keys wins
2003 A US-led coalition launches a ground invasion of Iraq after an ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq expires
2004 Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader.
2004 18th Soul Train Music Awards: R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, Outkast & Beyoncé win
2005 A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.
2006 Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country's banana crop.
2006 Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.
2010 56th National Film Awards (India): "Antaheen" wins the Golden Lotus
2010 France edges England, 12-10 at Stade de France, Saint Denis to complete a Grand Slam and win the Six Nations Rugby Championship; France's 17th title
2012 50 people are killed and 240 injured in a wave of terror attacks across 10 cities in Iraq
2012 Disney movie John Carter records one of the largest losses in cinema history with a $200 million dollar write down
2013 Pierre Deligne wins the 2013 Abel Prize in mathematics
2013 First Breakthrough Prizes, world's most generous science prize worth $3 million, awarded in Mathematics, Life Sciences and Physics established by Julia and Yuri Milner
2016 Barack Obama becomes the first US President to visit Cuba since 1928, arriving for a 3 day tour
2017 Indian rivers Yamuna and the Ganges declared "living entities" by court in the state of Uttarakhand
2018 Actress Cynthia Nixon announces she will run for New York Governor
2018 Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House
2019 Finland is the world's happiest country, South Sudan is world's least happy, according to annual World Happiness Report
2019 Four men arrested in South Korea for secretly filming 1,600 hotel guests and selling the footage via a website
2019 A woman who can smell Parkinson's disease has helped researchers identify molecules on the skin of people with the disease in Manchester, England
2019 The Walt Disney Company acquires Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox entertainment business for $71 billion
2019 Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts calls the state's flooding "the most widespread destruction we have ever seen in our state's history"
2020 India hangs four men for 2012 gang rape and murder of woman on a bus in New Delhi, country's first hanging since 2013
2020 After 20 years with the New England Patriots, six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady officially agrees to move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a 2-year $50m guaranteed deal
2020 Smoke from Australian bushfires killed more people than the fires - 417 vs 33 according to new study published in "Medical Journal of Australia"

[Richard Frost]

Word of the Day : March 21, 2021 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

cannibalize
verb KAN-uh-buh-lyze

Definition
1 a : to take salvageable parts from (something, such as a disabled machine) for use in building or repairing another machine

b : to make use of (a part taken from one thing) in building, repairing, or creating something else

2 : to deprive of an essential part or element in creating or sustaining another facility or enterprise

3 : to take (sales) away from an existing product by selling or being sold as a similar but new product usually from the same manufacturer; also : to affect (something, such as an existing product) adversely by cannibalizing sales

4 : to practice cannibalism

Did You Know?
During World War II, military personnel often used salvageable parts from disabled vehicles and aircraft to repair other vehicles and aircraft. This sacrifice of one thing for the sake of another of its kind must have reminded some folks of cannibalism by humans and animals because the process came to be known as cannibalizing. The armed forces of this time were also known to cannibalize—that is, to take away personnel from—units to build up other units. It didn't take long for this military slang to become civilianized. Since its demobilization, the term has been used in a variety of contexts.

Examples
"As it turns out, the company's 787 campus in North Charleston is helping to downsize the design of the aircraft. The concern is that a new jet in the 270-passenger category would cannibalize the Dreamliner program, which remains a critical revenue source for Boeing." — John McDermott, Post & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), 26 Jan. 2021

"The origin of stars in the galactic thick disc is unclear, with some studies suggesting that they formed in a distinct, old galaxy that our younger and more massive Milky Way galaxy later cannibalized." — West Hawaii Today, 23 Jan. 2021