palatine (PAL-uh-tyn, -teen) adjective
1. Of or relating to
a palace. After Palatine, from Latin
Palatium, the name of the centermost of the seven hills on which ancient Rome
was built. Roman emperors built their
palaces on this hill. The word palace
also derives from the same source. Earliest
documented use: 1436.2. Of or relating to a palate. From French palatin, from Latin palatum palate (roof of the mouth). Earliest documented use: 1656.
plutolatry (ploo-TOL-uh-tree) noun Excessive devotion to wealth.
From Greek pluto- (wealth) + -latry (worship). Earliest documented use: 1891. Pluto was the god of riches in Greek mythology.
gossamer (GOS-uh-muhr) noun 1. Something light, thin, or insubstantial. 2. A soft sheer gauzy fabric, used for veils, etc. 3. A fine, filmy cobweb or its thread seen floating in the air in calm weather. adjective Thin, light, or delicate. From goose + summer. The term is believed to have originated as a name for late autumn when geese are in season and then transferred to cobwebs seen around that time of the year. Earliest documented use: 1325.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Enita
Torres Subject: logomaniaAs a graphic designer, this word makes me smile. I love logos and my designer friends and I call Nascar-esque sponsor pages "logo soup". I'm going to start calling them logomania.
From: Richard Alexander Subject: zymurgy and aardvark
"Aardvark" is the first word only in seriously abridged dictionaries. It's trumped by aa, a form of lava beloved by Scrabble players. And if we're being literal, "a" is the first word in the dictionary. Similarly, in my New Oxford Dictionary of English, zymurgy is followed by Zyrian, defined as "former term for Komi (the language)"
From: Win Robins Subject: gossamer
The nicest use of "gossamer" that I know is in Cole Porter's Just One of Those Things. . . . "a trip to the moon on gossamer wings . . . "
From: Manuj Agarwal Subject: gossamer
Heard the word in Sienfield 1:37 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1fSMUOzufI Elaine wants to understand the meaning of a cartoon published in the New Yorker and goes to the extent of seeing the cartoon editor. He then explains to her that cartoons are like gossamer and one does not dissect a gossamer.
Herman
Hollerith's Pantographic Card Punch
was developed for the 1890 US census. Prior
to 1890, cards were punched using a train conductor's ticket punch that allowed
holes to be placed only around the edge of the card, and was not terribly
accurate, and which tended to induce strain injuries. The Pantographic punch allowed accurate
placement of holes with minimum physical strain, one hole at a time, and also
provided access to the interior of the card, allowing more information per
card. A skilled Pantograph operator
could punch 700 cards per day. See many
pictures at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/oldpunch.html
Herman Hollerith was born in Buffalo, N.Y., of German immigrant parents, on February
29, 1860. He despised spelling. Enough to jump
out a grade-school window to escape it. With that, he also jumped out of the New York
City school system. A private tutor,
though, helped him learn enough to permit his entrance into Columbia College
when he was just sixteen. He graduated
three years later as a mining engineer, with low marks only in bookkeeping and
machines He ignored this setback and
went on to invent the first punched card electrical tabulating machines. A chicken salad supper at the home of Dr.
John Shaw Billings is said to have led to his landmark inventions. Hollerith and Dr. Billings both were then
working at the U.S. Census Office, so naturally they talked about the upcoming
1880 census. Dr. Billings suggested that
there ought to be a way to mechanize the census tabulation to save time and
reduce errors. That set Hollerith thinking—and working—on the problem. It took years of hard, patient work to
complete the job. He joined the Census
Office in 1879, but didn't file his first patent until 1884. He first put his machines to work in 1887 in
Baltimore—just about the time the Census Office was limping through the final
stages of manually tabulating the 1880 census.
At that rate, the 1890 census would be out of date by the time it was
completed. The population was growing
about 25 percent a decade, to more than 60 million in 1890. And more information was needed on each of
those 60 million people. So Hollerith
timed his invention just right, although he needed more than patents and
practical experience to win the day. He
also had competition—from tabulating systems devised by Charles F. Pidgin and
William C. Hunt. The Census Office
[wanted a comparison] of the three systems before choosing one. So they tested all three, using a selected set
of data obtained in the 1880 census. Hollerith
won, hands down. With his equipment,
clerks transcribed data from census forms to punched cards and tabulated data
twice as fast as they did with the Pidgin system—and three times faster than
with the Hunt system. The Hollerith
system really proved itself in the real census of 1890. Complete results were
available two years sooner than the previous census. The data was more thoroughly analyzed, too,
and at less cost—an estimated $5 million less than manual tabulation, nearly
ten times greater than the predicted savings.
About 1905, the U.S. Census Bureau gave him an ultimatum: improve the
machines and cut the rentals (which each year about equaled his total
manufacturing cost). To this Hollerith
said, No. The Census Bureau said: Then
we'll make them ourselves and improve them ourselves. Which they did, using
former Hollerith employees to run the operation. Herman wrote irate letters to newspapers and
to the President. He sued the government
for infringing his patents. But he
finally lost the legal argument in 1912 after seven years of litigation and
lost business. By that time, he already
had sold his company,
and in 1912 it was part of the Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company,* one of
the nation's first conglomerates. Hollerith
remained chief consulting engineer to CTR and a major stockholder, which led
inexorably to a classic confrontation between the brilliant engineer,
Hollerith, and the brilliant salesman, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. He stayed with the company until 1921, but he
participated in its activities less and less, while its success grew and grew. He avoided Watson as much as possible, and
devoted most of his time to the life of a gentleman farmer on Chesapeake Bay. He seemed to be more interested in boating,
farming, and raising Guernsey cattle than in running a business. In 1920 he wrote: "My entire life has
been devoted to matters very far removed from farming, in fact mechanical, but
I have never been so intensely interested in anything as I have in Guernseys .
. . " http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_hollerith.html
* The Computer-Tabulating
Recording Company was the result of the merger, in 1911, of three
companies: the International Time
Recording Company, The Tabulating Machine Company, and the Computing Scale
Company. The new company (CTR) came
under single management for the first time in 1914, when the company had 1,300
employees. In 1924, the name
International Business Machines Corporation was adopted.
Christopher Claus "Chris" Andersen (born July 7, 1978), nicknamed "Birdman",
is an American
professional basketball player who currently plays for the Miami Heat
of the NBA. Andersen was born in Long Beach, California,
grew up in Iola, Texas, and played one year at Blinn
College. Andersen began his
professional career in the Chinese Basketball League and the
American minor leagues. He then played
in the NBA for the Denver
Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. Andersen is known for brightly colored
tattoos on his arms, chest, neck, back, hands and legs. His first tattoo was given as an eighteenth
birthday gift by his mother, who has some body art of her own from her tenure
in the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. Andersen's regular tattoo
artist, Denver-based John Slaughter, estimates he has inked 75 percent of
his body. Andersen is fond of charity work, to which he
donates most profits from exploring his image - such a 2009 Arby's
promotion in Denver that gave "Birdman" glasses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Andersen
Calling their union “the
world’s first truly global trade book publishing company,” Penguin and Random House finalized on July 1, 2013 a merger that
brings together two legacy publishers, at a time when the rise of the Kindle, among other forces, threatens the
dominance of the traditional publishing houses.
Random House’s parent company, the German media group Bertelsmann, is to
control 53% of the new company, while 47% is to be controlled by Pearson,
Penguin’s parent company. The chief
executive of Penguin Random House is Markus Dohle, who has held the same
position at Random House since 2008. The
company’s chairman is John Makinson, who has headed the Penguin Group since
2002. According to a press release, the
company will be based in New York and will employ 10,000 people. The new company is an impressive show of strength,
featuring a list that will include "The Grapes of Wrath" and
"Fifty Shades of Grey," as well as much of what’s in between. The new company’s press release says that its
combined list includes more than 70 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. It intends to publish 15,000 new titles per
year across its 250 imprints. Alexander
Nazaryan See new logo (Penguin Rando
House) at: http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-penguin-and-random-house-finalize-merger-20130701,0,6267513.story
No comments:
Post a Comment