Word-Wednesday for May 8, 2019

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, for May 8, 2019, the 19th Wednesday of the year,  the 128th day of the year, with 237 days remaining.


Nordhem Lunch: Hot Ham Sandwich w/Potatoes & Gravy


Earth/Moon Almanac for May 8, 2019
Sunrise: 5:52am; Sunset: 8:48pm; 2 minutes, 55 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:41am; Moonset: not today; waxing crescent


Temperature Almanac for May 8, 2019
                Average        Record         Today
High            62                  85               58
Low             38                  22               34


May 8 Local News Headline
Roseau Times Region:
Swedish Runner Accidentally Shot with Starter Pistol: Police Claim Shooting is Race-Related


May 8 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Coconut Cream Pie Day
• National Have A Coke Day
• National Receptionists’ Day
• National Third Shift Workers Day
• National School Nurse Day
• National Bike To School Day
• No Socks Day

May 8 Riddle
What vegetables may be reduced to ashes merely by removing a part of them?*


May 8 Pun
Lambs to the left of me; 

mutton to the right.
Here I am, 

stuck in the middle with ewe.

May 8 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1835 First installment of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• 1877 First Westminster Dog Show.
• 1899 The Irish Literary Theatre opens in Dublin.
• 1921 Sweden abolishes capital punishment.
• 1945 V-E Day: WWII ends in Europe after Germany signs an unconditional surrender.

May 8 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1737 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
• 1742 Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz, Czech composer.
• 1753 Phillis Wheatley, American poet.
• 1806 Johann Friedrich Kittl, Czech composer.
• 1911 Robert Johnson, American blues singer.
• 1937 Thomas Pynchon.
• 2008 Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games.

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

• argute: shrewd.
• credencive: disposed to give credence; ready to believe.
• dunch: To deliver a short, sharp blow to (someone or something); to strike, thump, push; to knock against, bump into; /spec./ to give (a person) a nudge or poke with the elbow.
• guddle: to fish with one's hands by groping under the stones or banks of a stream.
• marmoreal: made of or likened to marble.
• pinny: an apron.
• prefactory: serving as an introduction; introductory.
• preterition: the action of passing over or disregarding a matter, especially the rhetorical technique of mentioning something by professing to omit it; (in Calvinist theology) the state of not being predestined to salvation.
• prolate: (of a spheroid) lengthened in the direction of a polar diameter.
• realpolitik: politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises.

May 8 Word-Wednesday Feature
Writing Rules
One nice thing about writing - you don't have to have an interesting name or an interesting topic to make it big, even if you write a book that tells everyone else how they should be writing. For example, there’s William Strunk, Junior’s and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style, now in its fourth edition. This compact, 97-page book has five chapters numbered with Roman numerals to convey the intended authoritative gravitas and ensure ongoing sales.

Chapter II, Elementary Principles of Composition, Section 16, Keep related words together, provides the rules:
“The position of the words in a sentence is the principal means of showing their relationship. Confusion and ambiguity result when words are badly placed. The writer must, therefore, bring together the words and groups of words that are related in thought and keep apart those that are not so related.”

Then then Section 16 provides some examples of incorrect and corrected word relationship sentences. Try your hand at revising the following sentences [adapted from the original text].

1. WannaskaWriter noticed a large Guinness stain in the the rug that was right in the middle.**

2. Chairman Joe can call his sister in Boston and tell her all about WannaskaWriter’s Guinness rug stain for just sixty cents.***

3. Wannaksa’s first commercial human-sperm bank opened Friday with semen samples from 18 men frozen in a stainless steel tank.****


Be better than yesterday, learn a new word rule today, try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow, and write when you have the time.

*squashes.

**WannaskaWriter noticed a large Guinness stain in the center of the rug.

***For just sixty cents Chairman Joe can call his sister in Boston and tell her about WannaskaWriter’s Guinness rug stain.

****Wannaska’s first commercial human-sperm bank opened Friday when semen samples were taken from 18 men. The samples were frozen and stored in a stainless steel tank.