Hi and welcome to the Almanac for Tuesday, February 27, 2018.
For fun, I am going to throw random February quotes throughout today’s almanac. Here is the first one.
Without Valentine's Day, February would be... well, January. -Jim Gaffigan
Today is International Polar Bear Day, National Kahlua Day (I’ll drink to that), National Polar Bear Day, and National Strawberry Day.
The first decision you need to make today is which Polar Bear Day you intend to celebrate. National Polar Bear Day has a more homey flavor to it, whereas International Polar Bear Day is a more inclusive celebration. So many things to consider…maybe just stick with the Kahlua and strawberries!
Kahlúa is a coffee-flavored liqueur which comes from Mexico. The drink contains rum, sugar, vanilla bean, and coffee. For Christmas this past year I gave my wife a very powerful blender. Since she is out grocery shopping right now, I will mix up a strawberry Kahlúa drink and let you know how it is.
Commercial break.
February, a form
Pale-vestured, wildly fair,—
One of the North Wind's daughters,
With icicles in her hair.
-Edgar Fawcett, "The Masque of Months"
Okay, I am back. I do not recommend Kahlúa and strawberries mixed together. But if you really want to try it, I have a pitcher full here with barely an ounce missing!
On to other things…most importantly what is the deal with the silent “R” in February? I have to admit, for full disclosure, that I went many years into adulthood pronouncing that first “R” sound in February. It sounds weird but nobody really pointed it out to me that the most common pronunciation involves a silent “R”. Ignorance is bliss, I guess…or in this case, igno-ance.
February is the border between winter and spring. -Terri Guillemets, "Years," 2002
Here are some famous people that were born of February 27th:
272 – Constantine the Great, Roman emperor
1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet
1902 – John Steinbeck, American writer of Grapes of Wrath, Nobel laureate
Of course, if you were born of February 27th then Happy Birthday! Feel free to stick a sticky note right below John Steinbeck’s name…unless you were born before him. If that is the case then thank you for making me feel young!
Events that happened on this day include the first Mardi Gras celebration (1827), People magazine debuted (1974), and an 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit Chile in 2010.
February...
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains...
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
Email me your comments at ffefreekshow@hotmail.com If you have a good Kahlúa recipe put it in the comments. Please no strawberries!
By John L. Bouchard
For fun, I am going to throw random February quotes throughout today’s almanac. Here is the first one.
Without Valentine's Day, February would be... well, January. -Jim Gaffigan
Today is International Polar Bear Day, National Kahlua Day (I’ll drink to that), National Polar Bear Day, and National Strawberry Day.
The first decision you need to make today is which Polar Bear Day you intend to celebrate. National Polar Bear Day has a more homey flavor to it, whereas International Polar Bear Day is a more inclusive celebration. So many things to consider…maybe just stick with the Kahlua and strawberries!
Kahlúa is a coffee-flavored liqueur which comes from Mexico. The drink contains rum, sugar, vanilla bean, and coffee. For Christmas this past year I gave my wife a very powerful blender. Since she is out grocery shopping right now, I will mix up a strawberry Kahlúa drink and let you know how it is.
Commercial break.
February, a form
Pale-vestured, wildly fair,—
One of the North Wind's daughters,
With icicles in her hair.
-Edgar Fawcett, "The Masque of Months"
Okay, I am back. I do not recommend Kahlúa and strawberries mixed together. But if you really want to try it, I have a pitcher full here with barely an ounce missing!
On to other things…most importantly what is the deal with the silent “R” in February? I have to admit, for full disclosure, that I went many years into adulthood pronouncing that first “R” sound in February. It sounds weird but nobody really pointed it out to me that the most common pronunciation involves a silent “R”. Ignorance is bliss, I guess…or in this case, igno-ance.
February is the border between winter and spring. -Terri Guillemets, "Years," 2002
Here are some famous people that were born of February 27th:
272 – Constantine the Great, Roman emperor
1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet
1902 – John Steinbeck, American writer of Grapes of Wrath, Nobel laureate
Of course, if you were born of February 27th then Happy Birthday! Feel free to stick a sticky note right below John Steinbeck’s name…unless you were born before him. If that is the case then thank you for making me feel young!
Events that happened on this day include the first Mardi Gras celebration (1827), People magazine debuted (1974), and an 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit Chile in 2010.
February...
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains...
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
Email me your comments at ffefreekshow@hotmail.com If you have a good Kahlúa recipe put it in the comments. Please no strawberries!
By John L. Bouchard
Regarding the "silent R" in February.: According to a Google entry, the R is NOT silent, but rather pronounced "yoo." What!?
ReplyDeleteBY ARIKA OKRENT FEBRUARY 1, 2018 (http://mentalfloss.com/article/54846/whats-correct-pronunciation-february ) - However, can one trust a site called "mental floss"?
In the United States, the most common pronunciation is feb-yoo-air-ee. Both Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries consider the common pronunciation correct, along with the less common, more traditional standard feb-roo-air-ee.
This gets fans of the traditional standard all worked up. But the loss of the first r in February is not some recent habit propagated by lazy teenagers. People have been avoiding that r for at least the last 150 years, and probably longer than that. Given certain conditions having to do with word stress and the other sounds in a word, we simply do not like to have two r's so close to each other. The name for the linguistic process where one sound drops out because another of the same sound is too close to it is dissimilation, and it affects lots of languages.
Consider your pronunciation of the following words, and be honest about whether you really say the r's in parentheses: su(r)prise, gove(r)nor, pa(r)ticular, be(r)serk, paraphe(r)nalia, cate(r)pillar, southe(r)ner, entrep(r)eneur, p(r)erogative, interp(r)etation. Not everybody drops these r's, but at the same time, nobody seems to get too upset when they hear others do it.
There are, however, a few cases of r dissimilation that get people very worked up, namely, lib(r)ary and Feb(r)uary. Lib(r)ary attracts attention due to its association with commonly disparaged dialects. Feb(r)uary only seems to attract attention when someone asks what the proper pronunciation should be.
You want a language that leaves stuff out? Try French. Oh my goodness! They don't pronounce huge chunks of written works, then blend what's left into an aural Kahlúan cocktail. Don't get me started on the foibles of French.
ReplyDeleteOui, we halve scene that two!
Delete