And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, December 19, 2018, brought to you by the Elementary Winter Program, December 20, 2:00pm Badger School gym, and by the letter C.
December 19 is the 353rd day of the year, with 12 days remaining until the end of the year, 103 days remaining until April Fools Day, and 1,161 days until Twosday, February 22, 2022.
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Pork Sandwich
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Pork Sandwich
Wiktel Photo of the Day by Steven Reynolds
Earth/Moon Almanac for December 19, 2018
Sunrise: 8:14am; Sunset: 4:28pm
Tomorrow will have 11 seconds less daylight
Moonrise: 2:43pm; Moonset: 4:13am, waxing gibbous
Temperature Almanac for December 19, 2018
Average Record Today
High 29 55 36
Low 15 -31 21
- National Hard Candy Day
- National Oatmeal Muffin Day
December 19 Riddle
What did the surgeon say to the patient who insisted on closing up his own incision?*
What did the surgeon say to the patient who insisted on closing up his own incision?*
- 1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years.
- 1776 Thomas Paine publishes his first American Crisis essay beginning, "These are the times that try men's souls."
- 1958 1st radio broadcast from space, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower Christmas message "to all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to men everywhere."
- 1732 Benjamin Franklin, under the name Richard Saunders, begins publication of Poor Richard's Almanack.
- 1777 Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania for the winter.
- 1835 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard arrives in New Zealand.
- 1843 "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold.
- 1918 Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column.
- 1922 Theresa Vaughn, 24, confesses in court in Sheffield, England, to being married 61 times over 5 years in 50 cities in three countries.
December 19 Author/Artist Birthdays, from On This Day
- 1036 Su Tung-p'o, China, poet/essayist/painter/calligrapher
- 1915 Édith Piaf
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
- badmash: a scoundrel, a rogue; a miscreant; a hooligan, a ruffian.
- bijou: adj., (especially of a residence or business establishment) small and elegant; n. jewel or trinket.
- capstan: a revolving cylinder with a vertical axis used for winding a rope or cable, powered by a motor or pushed around by levers.
- deliquescent: becoming liquid or having a tendency to become liquid; CHEMISTRY - (of a solid) tending to absorb moisture from the air and dissolve in it.
- littoral: adj., relating to or situated on the shore of the sea or a lake; n., a region lying along a shore.
- pokerwork: British word for pyrography, the art or technique of decorating wood or leather by burning a design on the surface with a heated metallic point.
- winter dyke: hinged upright frame on which clothes are hung to air or dry indoors; a clothes horse.
- zeugma: a rhetorical figure in which a word or phrase is made to apply, in different senses, to two (or more) others, or (formerly) when it agrees grammatically with only one.
December 19 Word Wednesday Feature
In poetry or literature, one's writing style is the manner of an expressive language characteristic of th individual, period, school, nation, or Minnesota Township. In the context of all writing, style is a term that may also refer to standards or conventions that go beyond the individual writer or to singular aspects of individual writing.
In poetry or literature, one's writing style is the manner of an expressive language characteristic of th individual, period, school, nation, or Minnesota Township. In the context of all writing, style is a term that may also refer to standards or conventions that go beyond the individual writer or to singular aspects of individual writing.
We've recently seen some interesting examples of writing styles that incorporate local dialects recently, which arguably depend on a style standard. Today we explore some examples of the standard school of writing style by examining a few words from the style guide of The Guardian, since no such style guide has yet been established for Wannaskan Almanac contributors.
Focussing only on the letter "c":
- can not, cannot are not the same; note the difference between “you can not eat if you don’t want to” and “you cannot eat porridge with a knife”
- canon: cleric, decree, principle, body of writings, type of music;
- cannon: something you fire (plural: cannon, not cannons)
- canvas: tent, painting
- canvass: solicit votes
- casbah: rather than kasbah
- castoff: one word (noun, adjective)
- cast off: two words (verb)
- Catholic church: but if you mean Roman Catholic, say so.
- celibate, celibacy: strictly refer to being unmarried (especially for religious reasons), but it is now acceptable to use them to mean abstaining from sexual intercourse.
- cement or concrete: not interchangeable terms; cement is an ingredient of concrete, which is a mix of aggregates (sand and gravel or crushed stone) and paste (water and portland cement); so a “cement mixer” should always be referred to as a concrete mixer
- chablis: wines from Chablis
- champ at the bit, not chomp
- chassis: singular and plural
- Chechnya, inhabited by Chechens
- cherubim, plural of cherub
- Cheshire cat, but cheshire cheese
- chickenpox: one word
- childish or childlike: Laughing when someone breaks wind is childish; laughing when someone is flying a kite is childlike.
- chocoholic, not chocaholic
- chocolatey
- choose: for some mysterious reason this often appears in the paper as “chose”, its past tense
- christened, christening: only when referring to a Christian baptism; don’t talk about a boat being christened or a football club christening a new stadium; named is fine
- Christian, Christianity, but unchristian
- Christian name: use first name, forename or given name (which in many cultures comes after the family name)
- Chumbawamba: (not Chumbawumba) band whose guitarist, Danbert Nobacon, threw a bucket of iced water over John Prescott, the then deputy prime minister, at the 1998 Brit awards.
- cohabitant: not cohabitee
- common sense, noun; commonsense adjective
- complacent: self-satisfied
- complaisant: obliging
- councillor or counsellor: A councillor serves on a local council; a counsellor offers advice.
- crapulent, crapulous: drunk; hence crapula, hangover
- cucumiform: cucumber-shaped
- C-word: can be spelt out in full, but should be used only when relevant
Be more childlike than yesterday, learn a new word today, and try not to be childish - at least until tomorrow.
*Suture self.
*Suture self.
I learn so much from your column, the first item being someone I know awarded a spot on the Wiktel page this morning, part of a friendly competition between three W.A. writers and the rest of Wiktel's telephone service area in NW Minnesota. Those chosen to adorn either side of its website page receive a small stipend, the left hand position paying slightly more than the right; either side receiving recognition of excellence from erstwhile envious competitors. Too bad, so sad, Joe and Jackie.
ReplyDeleteEnnaways, as Joe says Jerry says, "1915 Édith Piaf" caught my eye too. CBC used to be the radio station I first listened to when I moved into this part of Minnesota in 1979, if but for one reason it was the only radio station I could reliably get on both my AM truck radio and at home on the farm. Oh yeah, I could hit Roseau's 1410 AM, but I wasn't interested in Golden Oldies, C.W., Farm Prices Report (Pork belly futures are up today...) or religious programming.
CBC offered me a whole new window overlooking Canada (which I can almost see from here) in addition to French language broadcasts, news from the prairie provinces, the Northwest Territory, the Yukon and Nunavut. It was such diverse information that I gloried in it, although I knew but very few words of French and far less of Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun. Listening to those languages in a little 'hut' in darkest Palmville, was like being in an international community akin to maybe, Antarctica, or Baffin Island, and so stirred my imagination every day and night. So it was, I first learned of songstress Édith Piaf.
The next time I recognized her name was in the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," when her songs are played on a phonograph amid debris of a bombed building. Since then, I have often recognized her voice and said who, I think, it is. My wife, a former songstress of some renown herself, has wondered aloud whether I carry a torch for her as well.
Another C word for your list could be the pronunciation of the country of "Colombia"--is not pronounced as 'Columbia' on news casts or conversation. "It's Coll-lohm--beeuh" not "Cull lum-beeah!" Learned that on CBC too.
Thank you for a great weekly entrée d'almanach
The c-word is the last of our expletives that has even the slightest shock value. What will we do when they can put that on the news? I think of the Irish who flattened all their swear words long ago and now have only the drink to relieve their frustrations.
DeleteQuanaqpiaqqutit!
ReplyDeletePingattiut ittuq nakuujuq ubluq.
I've always been able to translate your phrases, but you have me stumped. I've copied it into the relevant websites and they also are stumped. There used to be an old Inuit fisherman who lived in a hut next to the Coast Guard station here in Hull, but they say he left on a floe two winters ago. I could have asked him.
DeleteA poem in memory of the day Robinson Crusoe left his island.
ReplyDeleteI related my yarn as I stood by the capstan,
To the crew who had saved me from my horrible island.
"T'was 28 years ago, those incompetent badmashes
Allowed our ship to get wrecked!
Talk about badasses!
Then my eyes deliquesced relating my actions so moral,
When I saved Friday from a cannibal cookout littoral.
Good Friday was worth it, he had this sharp little bijou.
And I hung on the winter dyke as he gave me some tattoos.
With pokerwork he covered up all of my skin
Till I said 'Friend Friday, I just have to give in.'
As he heated his needle he shot me this zeugma,
'Mastah go big or mastah go homah.'"
A masterpiece! Zeugma's are not easy.
ReplyDeletep.s. I meant to tell you: snow flea sighting three days ago.