Quotes for the day...

Some very good quotes from my personalized Google page:

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
- Stephen Jay Gould

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
- Ambrose Bierce

Today's language lesson...

In an IM conversation today, a friend of mine used the term "bated breath". As one trained (thanks, Mom!) to use language correctly (if not imaginatively), I did a quick Google search to determine the proper spelling, as well as the origination of this curious idiom - because I'd always spelled "bated" with an "i".

"Bated", as it turns out, is a linguistic corruption of "abated".

Read more about it here.