Xah's A Word A Day — the making of belles-lettres

When Tesla inquired about the $50,000, Edison reportedly replied to him, “Tesla, you don't understand our American humor,” and reneged on his promise

the terrorists reneged and killed the hostages

During this time she fought villains such as Catwoman, Doctor Cyber, the hippy gang THEM!, and the campy witch Morgana.

Wonder Woman was rebooted in 1987... Indeed, her character was wide-eyed and naive, innocent and without guile.

calamari: Squid prepared as food.

... Another definition would be an existentialist state of ever-elusive freedom while existing under unmitigatable control.

Snow was born and raised in Santa Maria, CA, but also spent time in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She's been a thespian since the age of 12, performing in local community and regional theatre.

A nosegay, posey (or posy), flower bouquet or tussie-mussie is a small bunch of flowers, typically given as a gift. They have existed in some form since at least mediaeval times, when they were worn around the head or on the lapel to mask the unpleasant smells of the time - literally, to keep the nose gay (happy). In their current form, they rose to popularity during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 onwards, at which time the tussie-mussie became a popular fashion accessory.

starboard and larboard (or port)

The above calculations do not account for the ancillary effect of (light bulb) heat on energy costs.

It is amazing, how some terminologies disclose a lot info about the psyche of the human animal community that created it. Today, i learned about Sissy Bar.Here's what it means, from wikipedia:«A sissy bar, also called a “bitch bar” or “passenger backrest”, is an addition to the rear of a motorcycle that allows the rider or passenger to recline against it while riding.».

Bloodletting (or blood-letting, in modern medicine referred to as phlebotomy) was a popular medical practice from antiquity up to the late 19th century, involving the withdrawal of often considerable quantities of blood from a patient in the hopeful belief that this would cure or prevent a great many illnesses and diseases.

... I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the «Arabian Nights»; and that the denouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much farther.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.

No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned usgreat annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl ofanother kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met inmy former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes onyour seraglio, oh, most Munificent ofCaliphs.

People observed the planets going around the sun according to the law of gravitation, and they thought that God had given a behest to these planets to move in that particular fashion, and that was why they did so.

There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed toward the Master of the household

In another instance, Coulter was heckled while speaking at a crowd of 2,600 at the University of Connecticut to the point that she ended her speech early and began to take questions from the audience, remarking that “I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.”

Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the Circles.

... the dashing and flashing of the five-coloured and six-coloured Pentagons and Hexagons careering across the field in their offices of surgeons, geometricians and aides-de-camp — all these may well have been sufficient to render credible the famous story how an illustrious Circle, overcome by the artistic beauty of the forces under his command, threw aside his marshal's baton and his royal crown, exclaiming that he henceforth exchanged them for the artist's pencil.

that upon the confidence of some merit, the war being at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been killed; but, without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of the emperor's mistresses.