A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

anecdata  (an-ik-DAY-tuh)  noun  Anecdotal information gleaned from casual observation.  Example:  My uncle has been smoking for 20 years and hasn’t been diagnosed with cancer yet; that shows that cigarettes are safe.  A blend of anecdotal + data.  From Greek anekdota (things unpublished), from an- (not) + ekdidonai (to publish), originally applied by the Greek historian Procopius to his unpublished memoirs of the Emperor Justinian and his consort Theodora.  Earliest documented use:  1980s.  A related term is cherry-picking.

backronym   (BAK-ro-nim)  noun  A word re-interpreted as an acronym.  A blend of back + acronym.  Earliest documented use:  1983.  When naming something, sometimes a suitable name is chosen and then an acronym is retrofitted on top of it:  USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism).  The clunkiness of the expansion is a quick giveaway.  Often, backronyms serve a useful purpose as mnemonics.  For example, see Apgar score.

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Hostilipitality:  Pushing guests to consume food and/or drink to the point of discomfort.  One day, my brother-in-law (from a culture that highly values hospitality) showed us his new apartment.  Once we were in the door, he realized he had nothing to feed us.  Alarmed, he thought he would at least offer us something to drink, but they had not yet stocked up on coffee or tea.  He checked the refrigerator:  no juice.  Water?  Filter not yet installed!  We kept saying it was fine, it was ok, we didn’t need anything, while he desperately searched the cupboards for something--anything.  Finally, he found a bottle of Scotch and insisted we have some.  I protested that making us drink Scotch at 10 am was not hospitality.  It was . . . I searched for the word . . . hosti . . .  And he said, “Hostilipitality!”  We use the word to this day.  -  Teresa Dybvig, Stony Brook, New York
I refer to those unwanted calls as pham:  phone spam.  -  Liza Levy, Paris, Kentucky

One of my students, years ago, inadvertently created the word flamboisterous, and I still think it is wonderfully expressive.  -  Cindy Watter, Napa, California

A friend once told me that he and his girlfriend were celebrating their two-month anniversary together.  Since anniversary refers to an annual event I suggested that he call it a lunaversary, since it was a monthly event.  -  Tom Furgas, Youngstown, Ohio

Bill Mauldin was born in Mountain Park, New Mexico on October 29th, 1921.  While in his early teens Mauldin decided he wanted to become a professional cartoonist and after school attended the Academy of Fine Art in Chicago.  He joined the United States Army in 1940 and began producing cartoons for the 45th Division News.  In 1943 he took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy.  The following year he became a full-time cartoonist for the Stars and Stripes.  His cartoons often featured two infantrymen called Willie and Joe.  After Ernie Pyle, America's most popular journalist in the Second World War, wrote an article about the work of Mauldin, he was picked up by United Feature Syndicate in 1944 and his cartoons began appearing in newspapers all over the United States.  Bill Mauldin died January 22, 2003.  https://spartacus-educational.com/ARTmauldin.htm

The 45th Infantry Division Museum is proud to have in its collection more than 200 of Bill Mauldin’s original World War II cartoons.  These significant drawings primarily date from 1944 and 1945 when Mauldin had reached the pinnacle of his wartime work.  http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/Exhibits/Mauldin.html   The 45th Infantry Division Museum, with 27,000 square feet of exhibit space and a 15 acre park, is located at 2145 N.E. 36th Street  Oklahoma City, OK 73111  Admission is free.  Find hours of operations and map at http://45thdivisionmuseum.com/Museum

Unlock the power of emoji search by Sophia Guevara  https://www.nten.org/article/unlock-the-power-%F0%9F%94%8C-of-emoji-search-%F0%9F%94%8D/  Thank you, Muse reader!  

The Maplewood (New Jersey) Township Committee issued a proclamation declaring November 22 and 23, 2018 “Ultimate Days” in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Ultimate as a sport, born at Columbia High School in 1968.  Carolyn Parisi  See pictures and link to more information at https://villagegreennj.com/towns/maplewood/maplewood-issues-proclamation-for-50th-anniversary-of-ultimate-frisbee/  the sport that was initially seen as a farce now has:  7 Million:  Estimated active Ultimate players world-wide  over 100:  Number of countries where Ultimate is actively played.

August 16, 2018  In the summer of 1968, Jared Kass was working at a camp for high school students in Massachusetts.  He decided to teach the kids in his dorm a game that he'd learned at Amherst College, where he was a student.  "I remember I was just running and leaping for a pass of the Frisbee," said Kass, who's now a professor of psychology at Lesley University in Boston.  "And I jumped up in the air.  And I had one of those moments of just sheer synchrony where the disc just made it right into my hand at the perfect moment."  "I didn't know that we were creating a game that was going to be on going to have a life of its own," Kass added.  But that's exactly what happened.  Fifty years later, millions of people play Ultimate, as it's known these days, in college, amateur and professional leagues around the world.  The game combines elements of soccer, basketball and football.  Instead of a ball, of course, players use a flying disc gliding through the air.  The players aren't allowed to run with the disc, so each team tries to score by passing the disc across a field until they reach the end zone.  The game made a big impression on one of the kids from that summer camp.  He took it back home to New Jersey, where he started playing with his friends, and creating a rulebook.  That kid was Joel Silver, the Hollywood producer who's better known for his work on blockbuster movies like 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard.  In 1968, Silver was on the student council at Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J.  "As a joke, I raised my hand in council one day and I said I move that we create a committee to investigate introducing Frisbee into the high school curriculum," Silver said.  "Which of course everybody laughed and said, what a funny idea."  Frisbee did not become part of the curriculum.  But Columbia High School did become the site of what's now considered the first game of Ultimate, between the student council and the school newspaper staff.  The International Olympic Committee officially recognized Ultimate three years ago.  And there's talk of adding the sport to the games.  Joel Rose  https://www.npr.org/2018/08/18/639615807/1968-created-the-ultimate-anti-sport-sport 

A northwest Ohio playwright will be inducted into the Toledo Lucas County Public Library’s Toledoana Collection.  John Scott and his collective works will be honored at 6 p.m. Nov. 19 at Kent branch, 3101 Collingwood Boulevard, Toledo, Ohio.  He is best known for the off-Broadway plays Ride a Black Horse and The Good Ship Credit.  Mr. Scott grew up in Toledo and graduated from Scott High School.  He has a master’s degree and doctorate from Bowling Green State University, where he worked in the Department of Ethnic Studies and is a distinguished professor emeritus.

http://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/music-theater-dance/2018/11/11/toledo-library-ceremony-to-honor-local-playwright-john-scott/stories/20181110111?abnpageversion=evoke

November 11, 2018  Douglas Rain, who voiced the soft-spoken HAL 9000 robot that went rogue in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has died.  He was 90.  The Stratford Festival, which Rain, who was a dedicated Shakespearean actor, co-founded in 1952, said that Rain had died of natural causes in Stratford, Ont. in Canada.  The festival said Rain performed at the festival for more than 45 years.  Rain was born in Winnipeg, Man. in 1928, studied at the Old Vic in London, and performed at theaters and festival across Canada.  He received a Tony nomination in 1972 for his role in Robert Bolt’s production of “Vivat! Vivat! Regina!”  The festival said Rain performed at the festival for more than 45 years.  All of Rain’s voiceover work for HAL was done in post-production.  Erin Nyren  https://variety.com/2018/film/news/douglas-rain-dead-dies-2001-a-space-odyssey-hal-9000-voice-1203025809/

LeBron James, after helping lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a last-second victory over the Atlanta Hawks on November 11, 2018, turned more subdued after describing the late-game heroics.  "I think it comes back to this gun situation that we have in America.  Gun violence.  People are being able to just go and buy guns and do things with them and innocent lives are being taken.  At young ages, young ages.’’  Before the game, James, his teammates and the Atlanta Hawks wore T-shirts emblazoned with “ENOUGH,” four days after the shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in which 12 people were killed.   https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/11/11/lebron-james-speaks-out-gun-violence-thousand-oaks-mass-shooting/1973158002/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  November 12, 2018  Issue 1985  316th day of the year  Thought for Today  Patience is also a form of action. - Auguste Rodin, sculptor (12 Nov 1840-1917)