Thursday Trivia + Friday Fiesta April 2009

Thursday Trivia

Orange (awr-inj): From the Sanskrit word narangah; reddish-yellow, bitter or sweet, edible citrus fruit.

Yoga (yoh-guh): Derived from the Sanskrit root Yuj , meaning “to control”, “to yoke” or “to unite”

Friday Fiesta

This section covers the origin of certain words.

ger·ry·man·der (jer-i-man-der)

Meaning:

Noun: To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

[Named After Elbridge Gerry + (sala)mander] This word was named by combining the word salamander, "a small lizardlike amphibian," with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusetts state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, "That will do for a salamander!" "Gerrymander!" came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only "the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage" but also "any representative elected from such a district by that method."

http://thefreedictionary.com/gerrymander

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Etymology

“Tantalize”

Meaning:

Verb: To tease or make frustrated, for example by tormenting (someone) with the sight of something that he or she wants but cannot have.

The name "Tantalus" is the origin of the English word "tantalize". Tantalus was a character in Greek Mythology, who was punished to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any.