Sunday Rest: catholic.

Today is England's Firework Day. Hurrah!

We let off the fireworks to celebrate the failure of the 1605 plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

So, now, tell me: what do you call a small bunch of people who get together in secret and plot to bomb public buildings?

That's right: terrorists.

Now, I'm very fond of bonfire night, but it's becoming increasingly frowned upon because people claim it celebrates the death of Catholics (and it's true both that the plotters were Catholics, and that they were most horribly tortured and executed).

But these plotters weren't just Catholics, or just men, or just humans, or just people with beards. 



The reason we're celebrating the day is because their terrorist plot failed.

Still, hey, it's probably best not to mention the Catholic thing, just in case, eh?

Word Not To Use Today: catholic. With a small c this word means wide-ranging, universal, liberal or broad-minded. It comes from the Latin catholicus, from Greek katholikos, universal, from katholou, in general, from kata- according to, and holos, whole.