Archaeologists, astronomers and modern-day Mayas shrug off the popular frenzy over the date of 2012, predicting it will bring nothing more than a meteor shower of new-age "consciousness," pseudo-science and alarmist television specials. The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy. Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012. "It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113714011

Humans have always been intrigued by the beauty and wonder of the night sky and the almost infinite possibilities of space. Indeed, astronomy is both the closest and the most distant science from common experience. Every curious person who gazes at the night sky becomes an astronomer, and yet the things we see in outer space are wholly outside our earthbound experience. That is why astronomy is both the oldest and the youngest science of them all. Ask an astronomer your questions at: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/

Woodhenge in Ohio
During a remote-sensing survey of the Fort Ancient Earthworks in 2005, Jarrod Burks of Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants discovered a circular pattern in the soil that stretched nearly 200 feet in diameter. Fort Ancient is a massive earthwork in Warren County that was built more than 2,000 years ago by the Hopewell culture. Robert Riordan, an anthropology professor at Wright State University, directed excavations there in 2006. Dubbed the "Moorehead Circle" by Riordan in honor of pioneering archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead, the area was a "woodhenge," defined by a double ring of posts. The outer ring consisted of large posts about 9 inches in diameter set about 30 inches apart in slip trenches filled with rock. The inner ring had similar-size posts set about 15 feet inside the outer ring. Riordan estimates that the outer ring would have held more than 200 posts, each 10 to 15 feet tall. Inner posts likely were shorter. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2007/05/01/sci_lepper01.ART_ART_05-01-07_B5_J06GK9I.html

A henge is the term given to a large prehistoric earthwork, usually but not always circular, whether of stones, wood, or earth. This word, interestingly, is a backformation from Stonehenge. http://archaeology.about.com/od/hterms/g/henge.htm

More backformations
singular noun pea from the older English plural pease
verb burgle from the older English noun burglar
verb diagnose from the older English noun diagnosis http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/backformterm.htm

Backformation is common. It has provided many unnecessary verbs. For example, the verb orientate was formed from the noun orientation that had been created from the original verb to orient. That verb orient had an interesting background, entering Middle English from Old French, which got it from Latin. The noun orient became a verb, meaning “to adjust or align toward the east,” which then broadened to mean to adjust in any direction or situation. Typically, the verb orient added -ation when it then became a new noun, orientation. And, again typically, the original verb was ignored and a new verb, to orientate was created from the noun. http://www.isba.org/association/july07bn/Language.htm

What caused President Warren Harding’s death in 1923?
Rumors about the cause of death began to circulate almost immediately. Foremost among them was a poison theory, in which some speculated that Harding took his own life in despair over troubles within the administration; others suggested that Mrs. Harding poisoned her husband to end his unfaithfulness. Another theory pointed to unhappy cronies who feared that the president might make good on his promise to clean up his administration. Recent scholarship has effectively scuttled such speculation.* The opening of Harding’s physician’s records indicates that the president had long suffered from high blood pressure and that a heart attack was the cause of death.
*See particularly Robert H. Ferrell, The Strange Deaths of President Harding (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996). from high blood pressure and that a heart attack was the cause of death. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1374.html

Same word, different pronunciations
progress PRAH-gress noun
progress pro-GRESS verb
attribute AT-tri-byoot noun
attribute at-TRI-byoot verb
Newark NEW-urk city in New Jersey
Newark NEW-ARK city in Delaware

Quote: "I think survival is at stake for all of us all the time. … Every poem, every work of art, everything that is well done, well made, well said, generously given, adds to our chances of survival." Philip Booth (b. 1925) American poet http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/175

A 1,658-pound pumpkin and its keeper, a tree-trimmer from Des Moines, Iowa, will reign over the 39th annual Half Moon Bay (California) Art & Pumpkin Festival October 17 and 18. Don Young's 5-foot-4 orange behemoth won Monday's weigh-off among 60 competitors and eclipsed the festival's year-old record of 1,528 pounds, said spokesman Tim Beeman. Young, who drove his pickup truck 2,000 miles with the pumpkin on board for the event, won a first prize of $9,948, or $6 a pound.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/13/BA551A4NTG.DTL

umber (UM-buhr) noun
a natural brown earth, used as a pigment; a reddish-brown color
Via French from Latin umbra (shade, shadow), which also gave us the words umbrella, umbrage, adumbrate, and somber. Umbria, a region of ancient Italy, has also been suggested as an origin for this term. The color burnt umber is made by roasting umber.
vis major (VIS MAY-juhr) noun
an unavoidable disruptive event (such as an earthquake) that none of the parties is responsible for, which may exempt them from the obligations of a contract
natural instances of vis major are also called acts of God
From Latin vis major, literally, greater force. Also see force majeure.
Feedback
From: Joyce Greene (jgreene cs.hmc.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--mortmain
Def: 1. the perpetual ownership of property by institution
2. the stifling influence of the past on the present and the living
As an attorney, I was aware of the mortmain statutes and was taught that their purpose was to prevent overreaching by the clergy upon those on their deathbed. The thought being that if a penitent, dying man turned over his property to the church, he would be granted leniency upon death—a small price to pay for a better afterlife. However, such agreements thwarted the heirs of their rightful inheritance and lands, throwing the heirs into poverty with no means to sustain themselves. To prevent such heavy-handed abuse, the statutes were enacted so that the heirs could attack and nullify such transfers made within a certain period before death. I just thought you would be interested in knowing the other reason for these statutes, although I am sure the king was not pleased with so much land (and tax base) going to the church (a purpose I had not considered).
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

On October 13, 1884, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was declared universal time by the International Meridian Conference, a gathering of 25 nations from around the globe. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/