Great to Be Alive Day
n.— «Byers fractured his pelvis when a Jeep he was traveling in struck a mine. Two others in the Jeep were killed by the blast. “Every year since, I celebrate “It’s Great to be Alive Day’ on Feb. 5.”» —“Return To The Bulge Mentor-On-The-Lake Veteran To Toast History With Comrades” by Kevin Harter Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) Dec. 5, 1994. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...