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Word-Wednesday for March 4, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the 10th Wednesday of the year,  the 63rd day of the year, with 303 days remaining, but only 28 days until April 1st.


Nordhem Lunch: Meatloaf Dinner


Earth/Moon Almanac for March 4, 2020
Sunrise: 6:59am; Sunset: 6:12pm; 3 minutes, 35 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 12:06pm; Moonset: 3:41am, waxing gibbous


Temperature Almanac for March 4, 2020
                Average           Record           Today
High             28                   54                 35
Low                7                  -46                 28


March 4 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
  • National Grammar Day
  • National Hug a G.I. Day
  • Marching Music Day
  • National Pound Cake Day
  • National Sons Day
  • Casimir Pulaski Dayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski_Day
  • International Pancake Day


March 4 Word Riddle
My first is a verb;
Add to me one letter, and I become an insect;
Add another, and I become a kind of vegetable;
Add two more letters, and I become the name of another insect.*


March 4 Pun
A woman falls into a deep coma when three months pregnant, but miraculously emerges from her coma just two days after giving birth. Her first vision is the face of her doctor, who said, “Congratulations! You have twins - a girl and a boy. Your brother named them for you.”
“Oh no, not my brother! He’s an idiot! What did he name the girl?”
“Denise.”
“Well, that isn’t so bad. What did he name my baby boy?”
“Denephew.”


March 4 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
  • 938 Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, the patron saint of the Czech state.
  • 1774 First sighting of the Orion nebula, by William Herschel.
  • 1789 First U.S.A. Congress meets and declares constitution in effect.
  • 1922 First vampire film Nosferatu premieres at the Berlin Zoological Garden, Germany, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
  • 1924 Happy Birthday To You published by Claydon Sunny.
  • 1989 The Louvre Pyramid designed by I. M. Pei is inaugurated by French President Francois Mitterrand.


March 4 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day
  • 1678 Antonio Vivaldi.


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
  • abderian: given to incessant or idiotic laughter.
  • chary: cautiously or suspiciously reluctant to do something.
  • crapulous: given to or characterized by intemperance, especially in drinking or eating; utterly debauched.
  • expergefactor: an alarm clock, or a loud noise in the night; anything that wrenches a person from slumber.
  • gribiche: a sauce similar to mayonnaise, typically made from hard-boiled eggs, oil, vinegar, and mustard combined with chopped herbs, capers, and cornichons, and served cold as an accompaniment to meat, fish, or vegetables.
  • lexiphanicism: the use of excessively learned and bombastic vocabulary or phraseology in a pretentious and showy fashion.
  • pogonotrophy: the act of cultivating or growing and grooming a mustache, beard, sideburns, or other facial hair.
  • rawgabbit: a person who speaks self-assuredly about a subject of which they know nothing.
  • swellegant: wonderfully stylish, elegant, or fashionable.
  • yevery: very hungry; ravenous.


March 4, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Scrips Spelling Bee Words
The 2019 Scrips Spelling Bee was notable for eight champions. The annual contest features words grouped in three levels of difficulty, which our tireless Word-Wednesday staff encourages you to review at your earliest convenience.



We’ve assembled a list from the One Bee Difficulty Level (easiest) as a warm up before you move on to Difficulty Levels Two and Three Bees. The phonetic spellings appear below, and the correct spelling of each word appears at the end of this post. The sound of the words is the only information available to the spelling bee contestants. Good luck, spellers!

an-uh-mAHm-uh-tuhrz: tools used to gauge the speed of wind.
bri-vEt: a document that grants a privilege or title on behalf of the government.
drAHP-sand: a miniature radio transmitter which is dropped by a parachute in order to measure the temperature and moisture of the air.
hOH-kuhm: a device used to elicit a desired reaction from an audience.
jAHd-puhrz: pants for horseback riding that are full through the hips, fit closely from the knee to the ankle, and typically have a strap under each foot.
lAHp-uhrz: shears used for pruning that are about two feet in length.
mis-di-mEE-nuhr: a crime that is not punishable by death or imprisonment in a state penitentiary.
pen-uh-tEn-shuhr-ree: a prison for people convicted of serious crimes.
skwAWk: to emit a loud, harsh cry.
vEE-zeet: a short coat that was formerly worn in the summertime by women.


From A Year with Rilke, March 4 Entry
To Love, from Letters to a Young Poet, Rome, May 14, 1904.

To love does not mean to surrender, dissolve, and merge with another person. It is the noble opportunity for an individual to ripen, to become something in and of himself. To become a world in response to another is a great immodest challenge that has sought him out and called him forth.


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


*beetle.

Correct One Bee Difficulty Level Spellings:
anemometers
brevet
dropsonde
hokum
johdpurs
loppers
misdemeanor
penitentiary
squawk
visite


















Comments

  1. I don’t wish to be trite or worse, lexiphanical,
    But my poems are stuck in this formula mechanical:
    Big Ben tolled the hour like a good expergefactor
    As I pulled up to the pub on my new John Deere tractor.
    To enter the place I felt a bit chary,
    But I had to go in, I was very yevery.
    From within I heard voices, a racket abderian
    That I knew in a flash was the barmaid Miss Marian.
    “For a crapulous lad you’re looking swellegant.”
    “For a rawgabbit gal you’re sounding intelligent.
    “Cast your eyes over here at my shiny new trophy.
    “I just won the bronze in the Olympics Pogonotrophy.”
    “That calls for a round and a post-dinner speech.
    “But first have some bangers and mash with gribiche.”

    Lexiphanicism: big empty words
    Expergefactor: loud clock
    Chary: wary
    Yevery: famished
    Abderian: maniacal laughter
    Crapulous: utterly debauched
    Swellegant: spiffy
    Rawgabbit: one who speaks without knowing
    Pogonotrophy: facial art hair
    Gribiche: secret sauce

    ReplyDelete

  2. It’s a quiet day here at Paul Bunyan Transit. I have time to thoroughly digest Woe’s post. First of all, cute pic! But I think you’re making the dogs study too much. Let them be dogs.
    Great list of celebration days: Grammar. I love a flexible grammar. Hug a GI. Hope that includes ex-GIs. Pound cakes and pancakes. It’s always pound and pancake day. Marching music. Oompah! Sons day. Sadly my sons live 1,750 miles away. But I’ll see them next month. Then they can hug this old GI. We’ll eat pan and pound cakes and watch a parade while grammar goes out the window.
    I draw the line at Pulaski though. For me he was too much the Custer of the Revolutionary War.

    ReplyDelete

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