Word-Wednesday for November 25, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, November 25, 2020, the 48th Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of fall, and the 330th day of the year, with 36 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for November 25, 2020
These freeze-thaw cycles lead to interesting phenomena; be careful on that ice!

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.
Alternative Culinary Specialties

(click on map for larger version)

Earth/Moon Almanac for November 25, 2020
Sunrise: 7:49am; Sunset: 4:34pm; 2 minutes, 9 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 2:58pm; Moonset: 2:38am, waxing gibbous


Temperature Almanac for November 25, 2020
                Average            Record              Today
High             27                     57                     34
Low              12                    -27                     27


November 25 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Play Day with Dad
• National Parfait Day
• Shopping Reminder Day
• Tie One On Day
• National Jukebox Day
• Blase´ Day

November 25 Word Riddle
Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not.
What word am I?*


November 25 Pun
A priest, an imam, and a rabbit walk into a blood bank. The rabbit says, “I think I might be a type O.”


November 25 The Nordly Headline:
How To Receive Unwanted Criticism Since You Can't Go Home for the Holidays


November 25 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1034 Malcolm II, King of Scots (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda) dies; Donnchad, the son of his second daughter Bethóc and Crínán of Dunkeld, inherits the throne.
• 1792 Benjamin Banneker first publishes his Farmer's Almanac.
• 1940 Woody Woodpecker debuts.
• 1949 Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer appears on music charts.

November 25 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1566 John Heminges, English actor and member of The Kings Men, editor of Shakespeare's First Folio.
• 1845 José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese novelist.
• 1904 Ba Jin, Chinese novelist.
• 1922 Ilja Hurnik, Czech composer.
• 1928 Etta Jones.

November 25 Word Fact
The word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.


November 25, 2020 Song of Myself, Verse 4 of 52

 
4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.


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

• aeolist: a pompous, windy bore claiming to speak with divine inspiration or who behaves as if divinely inspired.
• bibliognost: a well-read individual.
• cabochon: a gem polished but not faceted.
• daint: adj., delicate and graceful in build or movement; n., something good to eat; a tasty delicacy.
• fangast: deemed suitable for marriage.
• kinnikinnkik: a substance traditionally used by some North American Indian peoples as a substitute for tobacco or for mixing with it, typically consisting of dried sumac leaves and the inner bark of willow or dogwood.
• laetificate: v., to make, or become, happy.
• manky: worthless, rotten, or in bad taste; dirty, filthy, or bad.
• sprusado: a person who is smartly dressed.
• tergiversate: to repeatedly change sides or affiliation; to evade or obfuscate.

November 25, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Dunning–Kruger Effect
Definition: a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. The 1999 experiments of psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger consistently demonstrated that  people [writers] tend to hold incorrect (generally, overly favorable) views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains.

The D-K Effect happens whenever a person [writer] lacks the self-awareness of metacognition: cognition about cognition, thinking about thinking, knowing about knowing, and becoming aware of one's awareness; in other words, higher-order thinking skills about one’s own activities [writing]. In short, since people [writers] cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence, people [writers] work under an illusory bias of either the superiority or the inferiority of their work [writing].

Humans [writers] being human [mostly], this bias error most often swings in the direction of overestimating one's abilities. The most dangerous zone in the Dunning-Kruger effect was plotted to humorous effect by the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Paradoxically, when the skills of the participants [writers] improved, the participants [writers] became able to recognize the limitations of their abilities and therefore realize that particular decisions were bad. This is good news; the D-K Effect can be corrected with feedback.

How do you avoid delusions of grandeur? Or, if you suffer the D-K Effect under the Imposter Syndrome  bias, how do you avoid being overwhelmed by self doubt? Who gives you feedback that you trust and will actually apply? Do you believe feedback when you get it? Do you have an editor? What do you allow your editor to tell you about your writing?

Word-Wednesday has previously addressed the need for editors; now the science backs us up. You and your readers deserve the best editor(s) you can find, and the Word-Wednesday staff highly recommends that creative writers use both an editor and a critique group.

From A Year with Rilke, November 25  

Enter Death (I), from New Poems

We know nothing of this going.
It excludes us. Faced with death,
what cause have we to respond
with the fear and grief or eve hatred

that twist the features to a mask of tragedy?
On this side of death we play roles.
So long as we seek to please the audience,
death, who needs no approval, play us.

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.

*not.