Word Wednesday, February 7

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, February 7, 2018, brought to you by Brigid's High-Brow Beauty Boutique, in the All Seasons Mall, uptown Pencer. Recently featured in the 2017 Winter Edition of Norwegian New World Woman, Brigid noted, "Otherwise the most non-hirsute of Europeans, the Scandinavian woman has an unfortunate predisposition to the bushy brow - probably because her face was always exposed to our harsh Scandinavian climate." This week only, BH-BBB is offering a 50%-off special on The Browser. "Why Tweeze at Home?"

February 7 is a big day for author births, including:
Sir Thomas More, 1478;
Charles Dickens, 1812;
James Augustus Henry Murray, Oxford Dictionary creator, lexicographer, and philologist, 1837;
Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867;
Sinclair Lewis, in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, 1885 [yes, they do spell it the British way];

Gay Talese, 1932.

Another notable but non-literary birth important to several Palmsvillagers is the industrious agrarian, John Deere, 1804.

As an all-purpose almanac, the Wannaskan Almanac endeavors to provide readers with a full spectrum of annual planning needs. Persons born today were probably conceived in May. Planning to conceive? Zodiac planning is available here: https://mymonthlycycles.com/zodiac-baby-planner.jsp

Today's riddle foreshadows Wednesday's word topic:
What is greater than God,
more evil than the devil,
the poor have it,
the rich need it,
and if you eat it, you'll die?*

Today's Word Wednesday explores an interesting, controversial set of words: profanity. Etymologically, profane developed as follows:

Note: This Daily has been Rated G by the Writers Guild of Wannaska; 

content suitable for all ages.

While the profane is typically defined in terms of its relationship to the sacred, the linguistic relationship is peculiarly ambiguous. On the side of the sacred, one might swear a solemn oath or promise, might swear loyalty or allegiance. On the side of the profane, while one may use offensive language, such words are often referred to as blasphemous (sacrilegious) or as a curse (invoking a supernatural power, subsequently mothered down to "cuss").

When using profanity, the contemporary writer should probably embrace the emphasis on the general meaning of the prefix, pro-, as "outside", or simply, secular. The local house of worship and the local tavern stand as anthropologically conjoined twins, representing the communal sacred and the profane, linked throughout history in virtually all of the worlds many human cultures. These communal houses of repute and disrepute are as dependent upon one another as they are distinct - right down to their languages - where each house serves as a pressure release valve for overheating in the other house. For example, few persons are so commonly offensive as the tightly wound and overly pious, except for the uninhibited and avaricious.

As an Italian courting Papal favor, Dante had liberty to explore the profane in his 9 Circles of Hell. But when it comes to the literary use of profane words in English,  most modern writers turn to the four-letter compendium in an age where censorship and/or a sense of governing propriety has all but vanished, thanks largely to James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, and importantly, Erica Jong. Over this modern period, the secular terms for profanity migrated from cursing to cussing - another secularization. It's fascinating to mark the penetration of profanity into the lives of English or American children, where the gatekeeper of the profane is typically Mom, and where profanity becomes the "naughty" word.

Euphemisms for profanity even penetrated the domain of the Sunday comics in the most popular of strips...

Effective use of profanity in prose will reasonably include considerations of the aforementioned basic historical provisions, as well as the emotional consciousness of the voice or character employing profanity, and the context in which the voice or character utters profanity. Emotional motivations generally include anger, confusion, contempt, despair, fear, pain, remorse, sorrow, shame, and surprise, where the motivational experience may be sudden or slow-brewing; where the object of the profanity may be another person, one's self, or an object as small as a toe or as large as the universe; and where the purpose of the profanity is most often to abase, to associate, to berate, to blame, to categorize, to capitulate, to compare, to demean, to name, to shame, or to shock.

Context can be as small or as large as the author's imagination and ability to put the context into words - infinitesimal or infinite. As a pleasant alternative context to superbowl Sunday, Catherine, Willa, and I joined Harland, Laurel, and Nox in their home just off the Waters of the Dancing Sky Scenic Byway east of Williams to enjoy a brunch that included the best homemade bagels ever baked north of the Twin Cities. Among other topics, we briefly discussed profanity while building our bagels with perfectly poached eggs, fresh veggies, and a variety of both homemade jams and cream cheeses, when Harland made a provocative observation: Some experiences may feel simultaneously sacred and profane, or beyond either - the confrontation between a sense of profound personal experience within a context too small or too large for human knowing - where the depth of the experience is beyond words, i.e., the sublime.

Enter the poet.

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

*Nothing