Word-Wednesday for December 26, 2018

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, December 26, 2018, brought to you by Betty Billberg's Bunny Boutique, featuring this weeks special, the BirchBunny Slippers.

 

December 26 is the 361 day of the year, with 5 days remaining until the end of the year, 96 days remaining until April Fools Day, and 1,154 days until Twosday, February 22, 2022.

Nordhem Lunch: Hamburger Steak

Earth/Moon Almanac for December 26, 2018
Sunrise: 8:17am; Sunset: 4:32pm
Moonrise: 9:39pm; Moonset: 11:21am, waning gibbous

Temperature Almanac for December 26, 2018
          Average      Record     Today
High       25              48           14
Low        10             -27           12

December 26 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Kwanzaa
• Boxing Day
• National Candy Cane Day
• National Thank-you Note Day
• National Whiner’s Day

December 26 Riddle
Whats greater than god,
Eviler than the devil,
Owned by poor,
Needed by the rich,
And if you eat it you die?*

December 26 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1606 First known performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear before the court of King James I at Whitehall, London
• 1830 Gaetano Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena premieres in Milan
• 1831 Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma premieres in Milan
• 1862 38 Santee Sioux Indians hanged in Mankato Minnesota, due to their uprising
• 1879 Johannes Brahms' Tragic Ouverture premieres
• 1913 Ambrose Bierce’s [Devil's Dictionary] last known communication, a letter to his close friend Blanche Partington
• 1944 Tennessee Williams' play Glass Menagerie premieres in Chicago
• 1966 Maulana Karenga establishes Kwanzaa (1st fruits of harvest) holiday. Kwanzaa is a celebration held in the United States and in other nations of the African diaspora in the Americas and lasts a week. The celebration honors African heritage in African-American culture and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. Kwanzaa has seven core principles:

1. Umoja: Unity
2. Kujichagulia: Self determination
3. Ujima: Collective work and responsibility
4. Ukamaa: Cooperative economics
5. Nia: Purpose
6. Kuumba: Creativity
7. Imani: Faith

December 26 Author/Artist Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1873 Karel Moor, Czech composer and conductor
• 1891 Henry Miller
• 1956 David Sedaris
• 1980 John Bouchard

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• actinic: relating to or denoting light able to cause photochemical reactions, as in photography, through having a significant short wavelength or ultraviolet component.
• albedo: the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon.
• chiliad: a thousand things or a thousand years.
• empasm: a perfumed powder sprinkled on the body to prevent sweating or for medicinal purposes.
• obnubilate: to darken, dim, or obscure something.
• plangent: (of a sound) loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.
• rickyard: the part of a farm in which hay or fodder is ricked or stacked : stackyard.
• succuss: to shake something vigorously, especially a homeopathic remedy.
• woopie: an affluent retired person able to pursue an active lifestyle.

December 26 Word-Wednesday Feature
2018 Word of the Year Awards

Each year the big dictionaries and other pundit publications use various criteria to select a Word of the Year. The Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance, based on usage data. The Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year: "toxic"

The Merriam-Webster Word of the Year is "justice" based on the company's date showing that the word was searched 74% more frequently in 2018 than in 2017. The runner-ups include "nationalism" and "pansexual."

The Dictionary.com's Word of the Year selection appears to be similarly focused on the effects of politics and language. "Misinformation" (as opposed to "disinformation") is Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year. Linguist-in-residence Jane Solomon said in a recent interview that her site’s choice of “mis” over “dis” was deliberate, intended to serve as a “call to action” for vigilance in the battle against fake news, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, no name but a few troublesome groups.

Not to be outdone, the Wannaskan Almanac Word of the Year was carefully chosen from an umbrella category of almanaconians, persons related to the writing or reading of the Wannaskan Almanac. Candidates for the Wannaskan Almanac Word of the Year include:

• Wannaskanik: a bearded, sometimes pony-tailed, left-wing, countercultural pundit residing in Palmville Township who drives foreign cars.
• Wannaskanifty: a person living in or associated with Palmville Township who possesses a unique skill, e.g., poets
• Wannaskanombies: a visiting tourist shambling in and out of Cafe 89, Riverfront Station, or the Bonnie's Hardware, asking for directions or looking for some place interesting to visit.
• Wannaskanerd: one passionately steeped in Palmville Township arcana but of otherwise limited capacity to self-censor expository presentations; see also, Wannaskasplaining.
• Wannaskanoid: [RARE] an obsessively compulsive reader and commenter of Palmville Township blogs.
• Wannaskaninny: a Palmville Township inhabitants happy with nothing who complains about everything.

The 2018 Wannaskan Almanac Word of the Year
Wannaskawannabe: the rest of the world.

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

*nothing