TODAY - December 8

 

NIELS’ MORNING GREETINGS

ON: DECEMBER 8

New edition

TODAY’s LENGTH:

This day is here in Belgium 8 hours and 23 minutes shorter than June 21. Its length is 8 hours and 7 minutes – from 08.32 to 16.38.

See more – also in English – about where you are on:  www.dagenslaengde.dk

TODAY’s NAME:

Today is called MARY’s CONCEPTION DAY.  It was introduced in the church by a special decision in Basel in 1439, because today is exactly 9 months before Mary was born on September 8 by her mother Anna.

The day is one of the old Mary Days.

The name of the day in Belgium is the same:  IMMACULÉE CONCEPTION.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:

1980:  John Lennon was shot and killed on the street in New York.

 

TODAY’s QUESTION:

Where the pepper grows…     What is the origin of that expression? And what does it mean?

To be sent to the place where the pepper is growing is a very old expression, which originally comes from France.  They had – and still have – an area in the north of South America called Guyana. It has always had a very tough and unpleasant tropical climate, where nobody wanted to go. At the same time a lot of pepper is growing in the area. The name Cheyenne pepper is very well known.  During and after the French revolution from 1789 prisoners were sent to Guyana to terrible conditions.

So the threat to be sent to the place where the pepper grows comes from that habit.

Today the expression is used in an indirect sense. If anybody tells you that he or she wants to send you there it is probably not one of your best friends. Or at least not any longer!

 

QUESTION FOR TOMORROW:

Play fandango – where does that expression come from? And what does it mean?

47 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT EUROPE:

EUROPE AT WORK     www.europe-at-work.be

 

 

TODAY’s QUOTE & FAMOUS PEOPLE :

1.  Yesterday’s quote:

If you have a garden and a library, you are missing nothing!

This was said by the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero. He also said that a house without books is a body without a soal.

 

2.  Today’s quote:

In politics the truth has to wait, until somebody needs it.

Who has said that?

3.  Famous people born on this day:

 65 BC:   Horace  ( died 8 AC )

1542:  Mary Stuart  ( died 1587 )

1832:  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson  ( died 1910 )

1865:  Jean Sibelius  ( died 1957 )

1925:  Sammy Davis Jr.  ( died 1990 )

1939:  James Galway

1953:  Kim Basinger

 

4.  Famous people died on this day:

1803:  Johann Gottfried von Herder ( 59 years )

1978:  Golda Meir  ( 80 years )

1980:  John Lennon  ( 40 years )

 

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen

niels4europe@gmail.com  

www.simplesite.com/kimbrer   +  EUROPE AT WORK   www.europe-at-work.be

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