If you like malapropisms (and who doesn’t), then you should celebrate the birthday of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was born on this date in Dublin back in 1751. His play The Rivals was not well-received when it opened — a member of the audience even threw an apple at the main actor. But after he shut it down and rewrote the script it was a huge hit — George Washington said it was his favorite play. One of the characters was Mrs. Malaprop. She used malapropisms, and thus the term was coined. For example, she referred to someone as “the very pineapple of politeness.” He also wrote The School for Scandal.

Get this — Sheridan went into politics and entered Parliament in 1780. He sided with Charles James Fox, who supported the American Revolution and tried to persuade King George not to go to war over it. He was giving a speech once and Edmund Burke, to dramatize a point, threw a knife onto the Parliament floor. Sheridan looked at it and asked “Where’s the fork?” [Ha!]

Later in his life, the U.S. Congress offered Sheridan £20,000 in gratitude for his efforts to avoid the Revolutionary War, but he refused the money. He is buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey along with Chaucer, Spenser, and other pathetic ne’er-do-wells.

Happy Birthday, Sheridan.

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OMG — I’m full of pride when Sam successfully gets his oil changed — how in the world did Chris and Ann stand it when son Greg got inducted into the U.S. Coast Guard’s Hall of Heroes, for acts of extraordinary bravery. Here’s how the Coast Guard tells it:

When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in late August 2017 it arrived as a devastating Category 4 hurricane that caused catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths.

One of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, Harvey caused a staggering $125 billion in damage throughout Southeast Texas and the Houston metro area.

On August 26, as part of the initial Coast Guard response to the hurricane Lieutenant Gregory Bukata ‘11, an MH-65D Aircraft Commander, and his crew conducted some of the first rescues that night, in 80-knot winds and torrential rain.

As the response continued, during one notable mission Bukata worked to place a Coast Guard rescue swimmer between tall trees and high voltage power lines to reach a critically-ill pregnant woman who was trapped by rising waters in the attic of her home.

An award citation describing the arduous mission reads, “Due to massive amounts of water intrusion, the crew endured multiple aircraft emergencies during the rescue of additional family members. The loss of critical avionics, internal communication, and aircraft stabilization systems coupled with the violent motion of the aircraft from 60-knot gusts made just hovering an arduous act and hoisting a true aeronautical feat. Following a hoist failure on the subsequent rescue, the crew was forced to leave the swimmer on scene. As the only available resource at this early stage of the response, the crew returned with a new aircraft to complete the rescue.”

During the seven days Bukata was part of the response, he and his crew were instrumental in the rescue of 108 people and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for extraordinary achievement in aerial flight.

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Greg went to school with our Sam and they were good buddies. Greg loved it when I teased him for laughs, pretending to confuse him with his sister Claire. He always had a gleam in his eye, part mischief, part joy. Still has it.

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In the puzzle today, “Seeing Eye dog, e.g.,” was GUIDE ANIMAL. And it set Rex off, to wit,

Wait, is “Seeing Eye dog” a brand name? Why is “Eye” capitalized? I would’ve written it without a capital “E,” and possibly with a hyphen. Wow, yes, it’s trademarked. Well, you learn something new every day. Or maybe not every day, but occasionally, anyway. I didn’t have any problem with the capitalization, but I do have a problem with the answer, GUIDE ANIMAL, which … are there Seeing Eye warthogs? The only GUIDE ANIMAL I’ve ever seen or heard of is a Seeing Eye dog. I guess the dogs that don’t learn the trademark method can’t be called that, is that the deal? Anyway, GUIDE ANIMAL feels … off. The internet is telling me that a “miniature horse” might also serve as a GUIDE ANIMAL, but I resolutely refuse to believe this. Thumbs down to GUIDE ANIMAL.

But an anony-mouse poster shared the following:

I actually worked with a woman who had a guide horse: a miniature horse that worked like a guide dog for the blind. You can Google it. She had previously used a dog to help her navigate, but dogs have relatively shorter working lifespans, and a lot of it is spent training them. I haven’t worked with her for ages, but I used to see her and her horse out and about in town and even at the mall, and think, “Yup, that horse is still at it!”

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From the Borowitz Report today: Mike Pence Returns Four Dollars to Donors.

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Good night everybody! See you tomorrow (if I’m not too tired from my classes).