Word-Wednesday, February 28, 2018

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, February 28, 2018, brought to you by Luv's Chihuahua Cannikin Collection; "Large or small, size matters!"

February 28 is the 59th day of the year with 306 days remaining until the end of the year. February 28 is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday than on Friday or Saturday, and like so many other dates, slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Wednesday.

Today's weather calls for a high of 33 and a low tonight of 8 with winds from the southeast.

Sunrise: 7:08am; Sunset: 6:05pm

Moonrise: 4:36pm; Moonset: 6:30am

Tonight the star Regulus, also knows as the Heart of the Lion, appears near the moon in in the constellation Leo.

On this date in literature:

• Henry Fieldings' Tom Jones was published in 1749
• Pope Clement XIII allowed the Bible to be translated into various languages in 1759
• The erroneous word dord was discovered in the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, in which  in which the term is defined as a synonym for density used by physicists and chemists, prompting an investigation in 1939
• Richard Wright's Native Son was published in 1940

On this date Michel de Montaigne, French essayist and philosopher was born in 1533.

In gratitude for the last day of February, today's riddle features this fleeting month:

        Penny has 5 children.

        The 1st is named January.
        2nd kid is February.
        Her 3rd is called March.
        4th is April.

        What is the name of the 5th.* 

Back by popular demand, this edition of Wannaskan Almanac Word-Wednesday features useful literary techniques, carefully selected to evoke interesting first impressions, all starting with the letter

Bathos
Bibliomancy
Bildungsroman
Bout-rimés
Bowdlerize

Having determined your own first-thought/worst-thought definitions, now select the correct definition from the following multiple choice options:

Bathos:

A. a writing style or quality that evokes languishing pity or sadness, especially associated with aquatic environments or with the last bottle of Guinness.

B. an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbath, acclaimed by ancient commentators for her lyric, elegiac, and iambic poetry, written to be sung and accompanied by a lyre.

C. a sudden and ridiculous descent from the exalted to the ordinary, especially when a writer - striving for the noble or pathetic - achieves the ludicrous; sharing some similarities with anticlimax, where anticlimax may be used deliberately and where bathos is always unintentional, as is all to common after consuming too many bottles of Guinness.

D. a writing style that employs deliberately clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events, derived from a device consisting of two flexible pieces of wood joined together at one end, used by clowns in bath tubs and in pantomime to produce a loud slapping noise to mimic flatus (also see, burlesque, no Guinness required).

E. all of the above, but with Hamms.

Bibliomancy:

A. a prediction based on a Bible verse or literary passage chosen at random during St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

B. a novel or novella about a romantic relationship between two or more bibliophiles from Greenbush.

C. a library-based suspense novel popularized by Agatha Christie.

D. an overarching diagnostic category (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition) for the various behavioral derangements common to word-crazed authors, including bibliodrivalitis, bibliolaxy, bibliomania, and bibliosis.

E. none of the above; bibliomancy is a fake word invented by liberals.

Bildungsroman:

A. a stylistic device used in literature and poetry to intentionally eliminate conjunctions between the phrases, and in the sentence, yet maintain grammatical accuracy. "Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?" (Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare)

B. popularized by German critics, from the German, bildung, "formation" and roman, "novel", a term for a portrait of the youthful development of a central character. Examples include David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler, and TOO BIG FOR PUBLICATION, by WannaskaWriter (http://palmvilletownshipmn.blogspot.com/). The term bildungsroman is often used interchangeably with the term erziehungsroman, except in Palmville Township.

C. a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole, or it may use a whole to represent a part. Bildungsroman may also use larger groups to refer to smaller groups, or vice versa. It may also call a thing by the name of the material it is made of, or it may refer to a thing in a container or packaging by the name of that container or packing. For example, referring to Wannaska as “America” when the “Americas” is actually made up of many countries.

D. derived from a Greek word that means “becoming silent”, bildungsroman is a rhetorical device that can be defined as a figure of speech in which the speaker or writer breaks off abruptly, and leaves the statement incomplete. It is as if the speaker is not willing to state what is present in his mind, due to being overcome by passion, excitement, fear, or befuddlement from too much Guinness. In a piece of literature, it means to leave a sentence unfinished, so that the reader can determine his own meanings.

E. A and C.

Bout-rimés:

A. one of the major poetic devices. It is also called an “imperfect rhyme,” “slant rhyme,” “near rhyme,” or “oblique rhyme.” It can be defined as a rhyme in which the stressed syllables of ending consonants match, however the preceding vowel sounds do not match; popularized by the French, who like to complicate poetry for the rest of us.

B. the French limerick, a form of verse, often humorous and sometimes obscene, in five-line, predominantly anapestic meter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second, and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.
Il était une fois un homme de Wannaska...

C. French term for an unusual A-A-B-C-C-B rhyme scheme, broken only to mark the midpoint and ending.  A well known example in English is Johnny Cash's cadence of the term "son of a bitch" in the line "I'm the son of a bitch that named you Sue!"

D. sets of rhyme words unattached to verses, such as the following lines from a poem by the great Jack Collom: Getting burnt, evaporated, bleached, or tanned / By the sun ain’t no way to jump. / I’d rather plop in shadow, be fanned / By some geisha girl, and lay around like a proverbial lump.

E. Your leg is being pulled.

Bowdlerize:

A. a device used in descriptive writing and visual arts, in which particular aspects of a subject are exaggerated to create a silly or comic effect. In other words, it can be defined as a portrayal based on exaggeration of one's natural features, which gives a humorous touch to the subject, applicable to virtually any character in Wannaskan literature.

B. the circumstance where an implausible concept or a divine character is introduced into a storyline for the purpose of resolving its conflict and procuring an interesting outcome, even in Wannaska.

C. remove material that is considered improper or offensive from a text or account, especially with the result that it becomes weaker or less effective; derived from Dr. Thomas Bowdler's expurgation of "offensive" passages from The Family Shakespeare (1818), but never necessary in Wannaska.

D. derived from a Greek word that means “transposition,” and refers to an inversion in the arrangement of common words, “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.” It can be defined as a rhetorical device in which the writers play with the normal positions of words, phrases, and clauses in order to create differently arranged sentences, which still suggest a similar meaning. Bowdlerize is also known as a broader version of hypallage.

E. a term related to barn dancing - not literary techniques - where dancers accidentally butt heads to the call, "Bow to your partner!"

Correct Answers
Bathos: C
Bibliomancy: A
Bildungsroman: B
Bout-rimés: D
Bowdlerize: C

Buďte lepší než včera, naučte se dnes nové slovo a vyhýbejte se problémům - alespoň do zítřka.

Be better than yesterday, learn a new word today, and to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.

*What.