National Dictionary Day
October 16
According to a Reader’s Digest article, the earliest single-language dictionary in the English language was known as the “Table Alphabeticall.” Produced by a man named Robert Cawdrey in 1604, it contained around 3,000 words. Oxford English Dictionary publishers, state it would take a single person 120 years to “key in” the 59 million words of the OED second edition, 60 years to proofread them, and 540 megabytes to store them electronically. The longest English word in many dictionaries is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” the name of a lung disease. It has forty-five letters. At the end of every year, you will probably see a few lists of the funniest, most surprising, most slangy words that were added to the dictionary that year. But such lists contain only a hand-picked few of upward of 1,000 added to the dictionary every year!
National Liqueur Day
October 16
The word liqueur is derived from the Latin liquefacere, meaning “to make liquid.” Liqueurs were probably first produced commercially by medieval monks and alchemists. They have been called balms, cremes, elixirs, and oils and have been used over the centuries as medicines and tonics, love potions and aphrodisiacs. A liqueur is an alcoholic beverage made from a distilled spirit that has been flavored with fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers, or nuts and bottled with added sugar or other sweeteners. Liqueurs are not usually aged for any great length of time but may undergo resting stages during their production in order to allow the various flavors to “marry” into a harmonious blend.
Today’s Birthdays of Note….
Oscar Wilde – Poet & Playwright – born in Dublin, Ireland
Angela Lansbury – Actress – born in London, England
