Definition: (verb) To talk or chatter idly or meaninglessly.
Synonyms: blabber, piffle, gabble, prate.
Usage: The group of tourists on the plane wouldn’t stop talking, and I fell asleep listening to them prattle.
Discuss
Month: February 2022
magician
magus – A person regarded as having great wisdom or powers likened to those of a magician. More…
archimage – A great magician, from Greek archi-, “chief, principal,” and Latin magus, “magician.” More…
fascinate, fascinator – Fascinate is derived from Latin fascinare, “to bewitch or enchant,” and a fascinator was a magician. More…
mage, magian – Mage and magian are two other ways to say magician. More…
UK Calls Off the Toddlers' Truce (1957)
Today we are used to turning on the television at any hour of the day or night and having access to countless channels broadcasting all manner of program, but this was not always the case. In television’s early days, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was the UK’s sole public broadcaster; it started out with just one channel, and it cut its feed from 6PM to 7PM to accommodate parents putting their children to bed. What caused the BBC to eventually abandon the so-called Toddlers’ Truce? Discuss
Giambattista Bodoni (1740)
As did many tradesmen of his day, Bodoni followed in his father’s footsteps, training from a young age to become a printer. He apprenticed at the press of the Vatican before assuming the management of the Royal Press of the duke of Parma in 1768. He paid little mind to the quality of text he printed, prizing typeface and layout above all else. By the 1780s, he was designing his own typefaces, some of which are still in use. What distinguished his typefaces from the “old style” of William Caslon? Discuss
be put behind bars
To be arrested and held in prison; to be serving time in prison. Watch the video
Melanism
Melanism is the dark coloration of the skin, hair, fur, or feathers due to a high concentration of the pigment melanin. A classic example is the panther—which is actually a black leopard. However, melanism has several variations. Pseudo-melanism occurs when dark markings cover a large part of an animal’s body, while industrial melanism results in dark varieties of animals that need camouflage in smoke-blackened industrial regions. What insect is commonly associated with industrial melanism? Discuss
perfidy
slave
amanuensis – Literally “slave at hand”—for a literary assistant, especially one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts. More…
ciao – Also ciau; from Italian, it is an alteration of schiavo, “(I am your) slave.” More…
serve – From Latin servire, “serve,” from servus, “slave.” More…
addict – To addict originally meant “to award as a slave”; an addict now is a slave to his/her habit, from Latin addictus, which, in Roman law, meant “a debtor awarded as a slave to his creditor.” More…
Entire US Figure Skating Team Killed in Plane Crash (1961)
February 15, 1961, was a dark day in figure skating history. On that day, 72 people, including all 18 members of the US Figure Skating team and 16 family members, coaches, and skating officials, died when their flight from New York to Brussels went down in a field just miles from its destination. A farm worker on the ground also perished. The skaters had been en route to the 1961 World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. What did the event’s organizers do to honor the dead athletes? Discuss
Miep Gies (1909)
Gies was one of five heroic Dutch citizens who helped hide Otto Frank, his wife and daughters, and four other Jews from the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands. After the hidden Jews were betrayed to the Gestapo in 1944, Gies took Otto’s daughter Anne’s diary, and kept it—unread—in hopes of someday returning it to her. After the war, Gies gave the now-famous diary to the only surviving member of the family, Otto. Why did she later say that had she read it, she would have destroyed it? Discuss