Word-Wednesday for August 26, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, August 26, 2020, the 35th Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of summer, and the 239th day of the year, with 127 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for August 26, 2020
The blueberry season has ended, and the bears have begun to scout compost piles.

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.

Word-Wednesday August 26, 2020 Summer Recipe
Bubbles - The BIG Ones

• 24 ounces dish soap
• 1 tablespoon J-Lube, (veterinarian supplyhttps://www.jorvet.com/product/j-lube/)
• mix thoroughly in 3 gallons of water
• 2 sticks

Cut length of rope to personal taste.

Tie rope to end of each stick in triangle.

Dip rope in bubble water.

Lift and walk backwards into wind

Earth/Moon Almanac for August 26, 2020
Sunrise: 6:32am; Sunset: 8:16pm; 3 minutes, 24 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 4:03pm; Moonset: 12:33am, tomorrow; waxing gibbous

Wannaska Spin Speed: 792 mph

Temperature Almanac for August 26, 2020
                Average             Record              Today
High              74                     91                     80
Low               51                     23                     54


August 26 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National WebMistress Day
• National Women’s Equality Day
• National Cherry Popsicle Day
• National Dog Day

August 26 Word Riddle
Often we are covered with wisdom and wit,
and oft with a cloth where the dinner guests sit.
In beauty around you and over your head, we are countless,
though numbered when bound to be read.

What are we?


August 26 Pun
Sven and Ula considered holding the two-month anniversary parties at the new Norwegian bar, until Sven saw the prices. “Ula, dese are unafjordable!”


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

• 1498 Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà.
• 1843 Charles Thurber patents a typewriter.
• 1873 First free kindergarten in the U.S. of A. started by Susan Blow in Carondelet, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1959 British Motor Corporation introduces the Morris Mini-Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis, it was only 10 ft long but seated 4 passengers.

August 26 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1627 Thomas Bullis, English composer.
• 1813 Nicaise de Keyser, Flemish painter.
• 1874 Zona Gale, American novelist.
• 1899 Rufino Tamayo, Mexican painter.
• 1906 Albert Sabin [Abram Saperstein], Polish American physician who invented the oral polio vaccine.
• 1910 Mother Teresa [Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu], Albanian-born Indian nun and founder of Missionaries of Charity, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1979.
• 1952 Will Shortz, American crossword editor.
• 1960 Branford Marsalis, jazz saxophonist.

August 26 Fancy Word Aphorism
Si non confectus, non reficiat. 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


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

• athanasia: the quality or state of deathlessness; immortality.
• bearless: barren; not bearing flowers or fruit.
• cuggermugger: someone who gossips; whispered gossip.
• farouche: marked by shyness and lack of social graces.
• illecebrous: enticing; full of allurement; beautiful.
• mythomane: a person with a strong or irresistible propensity for fantasizing, lying, or exaggerating.
• nudiusterian: of or relating to the day before yesterday.
• potamophilous: river-loving; pertaining to one who loves rivers.
• rendling: the process of fermenting milk into cheese; the curdling or setting of cheese.
• soodle: to walk or move in a slow, leisurely manner; to saunter or mosey.

August 26, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Metaphor
medəˌfôr, noun, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Today Word-Wednesday explores the eight different types of metaphor, where we begin with the anatomy of a metaphor. Metaphors of all eight types possess two elements: a tenor and a vehicle, where the tenor is the thing a metaphor describes; the vehicle is the thing to which the tenor is compared.

The most basic type is the primary or conventional metaphor, comparing two clearly connected items side-by-side. In the primary metaphor, "Sven is a peach", Sven is the tenor being described, and peach is the vehicle to which Sven is being compared. In general, metaphors can also be characterized as strong or weak, where in a strong metaphor the tenor and vehicle share obvious attributes (Sven and peachiness), as opposed to a weak metaphor where the connection between tenor and vehicle is less obvious (see absolute and creative metaphors).

Absolute Metaphor
The absolute metaphor combines unrelated two terms such that the tenor cannot be distinguished from the vehicle, often because of the circular relationship between the two terms. Anyone who has met Sven knows that he is a mysterious person with unfathomable motivations. Any living person in Wannaska or elsewhere knows that life is unpredictable. Sven takes the road less traveled.

Complex Metaphors
A complex metaphor combines a primary metaphor with a secondary metaphoric element. Sven and Ula stood alone, frozen statues on the Wannaskan plain.

Conceptual Metaphors
These metaphors take one subject and illustrate it in different terms, such as the scorned lover. Sven lost two weeks of his life being married to his upteenth wife before meeting Monique.

Creative Metaphors
In contrast to the primary/conventional metaphor, creative metaphors intentionally make novel comparisons that draw attention to their metaphorical status. Sven had never really fallen in love before meeting Monique. Oh, but did he step in it once or twice!

Dead Metaphors
A dead metaphor is a figure of speech which has lost its original meaning and imaginative force through frequent use or outdated terminology. Dead metaphors have been so overused that they get worse eye-rolls than bad puns. Sven flew off the handle when he looked at the hands of the clock at the foot of his bed and knew he'd be late to his retirement party.

Extended Metaphors
An extended metaphor uses a metaphor throughout a long passage or even an entire poem to create a clearer comparison between the two items. Shakespeare uses extended metaphor in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet: "But Soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief." 

Emily Dickinson uses extended metaphor in her poem, Sven Is the Thing With Feathers:

"Sven” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Implied Metaphors
An implied metaphor compares two unlike things without mentioning one of them. Monique asked Sven to go fetch her dinner. [woof]

Mixed Metaphors
Generally reserved for comic effect, the mixed metaphor combines two metaphors that are incongruous or absurd. Getting clear driving directions from Sven is like pulling teeth from a hen.



From A Year with Rilke, August 26 Entry
Like a Holy Face, from The Book of Hours, I, 62.

Only as a child am I awake
and able to trust
that in every fear and every night
I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
untouched my time.

To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.
I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly
in ways I can’t make out.
The day’s labor grows simple now,
and like a holy face
held in my dark hands.



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.

*leaves.