Henry Fowler

It's the birthday of lexicographer Henry Fowler, born in Tonbridge, England, (1858). Fowler was a schoolmaster for a while, then went to live on the island of Guernsey, off the coast of Normandy, where his younger brother Frank was a tomato farmer. Frank lived in a stone cottage, and Henry built another one less than 200 feet away.

"Display of superior knowledge is as great a vulgarity as display of superior wealth — greater, indeed, inasmuch as knowledge should tend more definitely than wealth towards discretion and good manners."
- Henry Fowler