(1856-1950) Irish born British playwright, remembered for such works as Pygmalion.
(1856-1950) Irish dramatist. He was also a critic and novelist, and an early member of the socialist Fabian Society. His plays combine comedy with political, philosophical, and polemic aspects, aiming to make an impact on his audience’s social conscience as well as their emotions. They include Arms and the Man 1894, Devil’s Disciple 1897, Man and Superman 1903, Pygmalion 1913, and St Joan 1923. Nobel Prize 1925.
Born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant, Shaw went to London 1876, where he became a brilliant debater and supporter of the Fabians, and worked as a music and drama critic. He wrote five unsuccessful novels before his first play, Widowers’ Houses, was privately produced 1892. Attacking slum landlords, it allied him with the realistic, political, and polemical movement in the theater, pointing to people’s responsibility to improve themselves and their social environment. His first public production was Arms and the Man, a cynical view of war.
The volume Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant 1898 also included The Philanderer; Mrs Warren’s Profession, dealing with prostitution and banned until 1902; and Arms and the Man. Three Plays for Puritans 1901 contained The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra (a companion piece to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra), and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, written for the actress Ellen Terry. Man and Superman expounds his ideas of evolution by following the character of Don Juan into hell for a debate with the devil.
The “antiromantic” comedy Pygmalion, first performed 1913, was written for the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell (and after Shaw’s death converted to a musical as My Fair Lady). Later plays included Heartbreak House 1920, Back to Methuselah 1922, and the historical St Joan.
Altogether Shaw wrote more than 50 plays and became a byword for wit. His theories were further explained in the voluminous prefaces to the plays, and in books such as The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism 1928. He was also an unsuccessful advocate of spelling reform and a prolific letter-writer.

(1854-1945) English meteorologist who introduced the millibar as the meteorological unit of atmospheric pressure (in 1909, but not used internationally until 1929). He also invented the tephigram, a thermodynamic diagram widely used in meteorology, in about 1915.
Shaw was born in Birmingham and studied at Cambridge, where he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory for experimental physics 1877–1900. He was director of the Meteorological Office 1905–20, and professor of meteorology at the Royal College of Science (part of London University) 1920–24.
Shaw pioneered the study of the upper atmosphere by using instruments carried by kites and high-altitude balloons. His work on pressure fronts formed the basis of a great deal of later work in the field.
His books include Life History of Surface Air Currents 1906 and The Air and its Ways 1923 (both with his colleague R Lempfert) and (with J. S. Owens) The Smoke Problem of Great Cities 1925, an early work on atmospheric pollution. Shaw’s Manual of Meteorology 1926–31 is still a standard reference work.

Adopted name of Arthur Arshawsky (1910-) US jazz clarinettist, bandleader, and composer. He became famous in the swing era when his version of Cole Porter’s ‘Begin the Beguine’ was a number-one hit in the US 1938. Other hits (all with different line-ups) were ‘Back Bay Shuffle’ 1939 (his own composition), ‘Frenesi’ 1941, and ‘Stardust’ 1942. He retired 1952.

Dialect; coppice, thicket
Chiefly British; the tops and stalks of a cultivated crop (as potatoes or turnips)

City in Mississippi (USA); zip code 38773.