By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/27/2024 4:34 PM
A Massachusetts man scored a $2.64 million lottery jackpot after using the same set of numbers -- his wife's former phone number -- to play Megabucks for 30 years. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/27/2024 1:55 PM
A Virginia library had an "exciting return" when a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" found its way back to the facility after being due back 50 years earlier. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/27/2024 1:52 PM
A Minor League Baseball team in Florida introduced its new "bat dog" to the public, but the canine ended up being less interested in game than she was in doing her business. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/27/2024 11:35 AM
A supposedly "injured" bald eagle rescued from a national park in Missouri was found to be merely "too fat to fly" after eating a bit too much raccoon. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/26/2024 4:58 PM
A ride shut down in the middle of a storm at Six Flags Mexico, leaving those aboard dangling 243 feet in the air for about 10 minutes. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/26/2024 4:42 PM
A North Carolina man found his car trouble to be unexpectedly lucky when a trip to the repair shop earned him a $379,747 lottery jackpot. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/23/2024 3:41 PM
Animal rescuers in Massachusetts came to the rescue of a red-tailed hawk that became entangled in the protective netting surrounding a golf course. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 8/23/2024 3:01 PM
A Maryland man said he was inspired by his uncle's $1 million lottery jackpot from the 1980s to buy the ticket that earned him $50,000 decades later. ... Read full Story
“The eagerness to vilify ‘the other side’—usually on social media—complicates the less reactionary work that defines our mission.” — Jerry Brewer, The Washington Post, 11 June 2024
Did you know?
It seems reasonable to assume that the words vilify and villain come from the same source; after all, to vilify someone is—in some ways—to make them out to be a villain. Such is not the case, however. Although the origin stories of both vilify and villain involve Latin, their roots are quite different. Vilify came to English (via Middle English and Late Latin) from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning “cheap” or “vile.” Someone who has been vilified, accordingly, has had their reputation tarnished or cheapened in such a way that they’re viewed as morally reprehensible. Villain on the other hand, comes from the Medieval Latin word villanus, meaning “villager,” and ultimately from the Latin noun villa, meaning “house.” The Middle English descendent of villanus developed the meaning of “a person of uncouth mind and manners” due to the vilifying influence of the aristocracy of the time, and the connotations worsened from there until villain came to refer to (among other things), a deliberate scoundrel.