Word-Wednesday for January 13, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, January 13, 2021, the second Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of winter, and the thirteenth day of the year, with 352 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for January 13, 2021
Wannaska forests sport spectacular frost.

A Pam Shaw photograph. 

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 13, 2021
Sunrise: 8:13am; Sunset: 4:52pm; 2 minutes, 2 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:58am; Moonset: 5:21pm, new moon, 0% illuminated


Temperature Almanac for January 13, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             14                     43                     35
Low              -6                   -48                     28


January 13 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Korean American Day
• National Peach Melba Day
• National Sticker Day
• National Rubber Ducky Day
• Stephen Foster Memorial Day

January 13 Word Riddle
The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza joint. What is his order?*


January 13 Pun
Although Christians, Jews, and Muslims have fought each other for centuries, Hindus have never had any beef.


January 13 The Roseau Times-Region Headline:
Roseau County Cellmates Complete Each Other’s Sentences


January 13 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1605 Controversial play Eastward Hoe by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston is performed, landing two of the authors in prison.
• 1610 Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, 4th satellite of Jupiter.
• 1673 Jean Racine's Mithridate premieres in Paris.
• 1695 Jonathan Swift ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland.
• 1785 John Walter publishes 1st issue of The Times of London.
• 1883 Henrik Ibsen's En Folkefiende premieres in Oslo.
• 1895 Oscar Wilde's Ideal Husband premieres in London.
• 1910 JM Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows premieres in Dublin.
• 1930 Mickey Mouse comic strip first appears.
• 1957 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Allen Tate.
• 1979 YMCA files libel suit against Village People's YMCA song.

January 13 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1562 Mark Alexander Boyd, Scottish poet.
• 1674 Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer.
• 1690 Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, German composer and librettist.
• 1812 Victor de Laprade, French poet.
• 1832 Horatio Alger.
• 1893 Clarke Ashton Smith, American science fiction author.
• 1893 Jan Evangelista Zelinka, Czech composer.
• 1930 Liz Anderson, American country music singer-songwriter (Mama Spank, The Game of Triangles), born in Roseau, Minnesota.

January 13 Word Fact
strengths and screeched are the two longest one-syllable words in English.


January 13, 2021 Song of Myself 
Verse 11 of 52
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.


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

• bupkis: alt. bupkes, nothing at all; from Yiddish, and not a word for polite company. Bubkes or bobkes may be related to the Polish word for “beans”, but it really means “goat droppings” or “horse droppings.” It’s often used by American Jews for “trivial, worthless, useless, a ridiculously small amount” – less than nothing, so to speak. “After all the work I did, I got bupkes!”
• conatus: a natural tendency, impulse, or striving : conation—used in Spinozism with reference to the inclination of a thing to persist in its own being.
• dowfart: n., a dull, stupid, faint-hearted, or foolish person; adj., applied to any thing that does not answer the purpose for which it is used.
• flonkerton: an olympic sport of Icelandic origin wherein the competitors race a predetermined distance with full boxes of paper strapped to their feet.
• hurple: to draw one’s limbs in and scrunch up the shoulders in reaction to the cold or a storm.
• penates: the benevolent spirits and gods of the household.
• ruptile: easily broken, shattered, or damaged; vulnerably delicate, brittle, or frail.
• specious: having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious; deceptively attractive.
• trinkle: to clandestinely listen to a conversation; to eavesdrop.
• windlestraw: a grass used for making ropes or for plaiting; a tall thin person.

January 13, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Slang
Careful readers of Wannaskan Almanac know that the English language has subcultures. Just ask Sven, or note the variety of ways that Wannaskan Almanac contributors spell and say the word, "anyway". One of the more interesting types of subculture word forms is slang: (slaNG) a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people.

Much of slang starts out as a neologism of a small, specific group and then comes into common circulation as slang because it has broken free of use by only its subculture members. Think, words from the wild, or words gone wild. Often starting on the heals of passing fads, slang words become popularized when they are topical, provide new meaning, or feel colorful and exciting. Depending on your age, Black argot and Yiddish are common sources, such as Granny Grunt or mentsh. Nora Neale Hurston developed an excellent glossary of Harlem slang. Shakespeare was fond of slang, as demonstrated in this excerpt from Henry IV, Part 1:
FALSTAFF: ’Sblood, you starveling, you elfskin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stockfish! O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase, you vile standing tuck—

‘Sblood,” which stands for “God’s blood,” and was slang for a swear word in Shakespeare's time.

If English grammar and its dictionaries represent the common code, slang starts out as an intentional violation of that code. Whether a slang word becomes popular as a matter of spite or as an act of liberation, wild slang sometimes becomes so popular that the dictionaries adopt (tame) slang, thereby enriching the common code for us all.

As such, just like poetry, slang creates new language from the desire for freshness and novelty of expression. In using slang, the very fine artist (poet) gets to break the law. Our friend Walt Whitman says, "Slang is the lawless germinal element below all words and sentences and behind all poetry." In Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry, Paul Goodman characterizes different forms of expression in terms of human development. With regard to slang: "In these descriptions we are hovering around age two. A child is learning to speak. He tries out his own expressions till he finds the ones that work. He is resentful when he is corrected. He gets the corresponding satisfaction of defying the corrector."

In this spirit, Word-Wednesday prefers to categorize slang words loosely. Some slang is outdated, e.g., wallflower and the cat's pajamas. More modern terms constantly evolve and include acronyms:

Coin: Another way to refer to money.

Extra: If someone's "extra," it means they're way too dramatic.

GOAT: Current usage is actually a compliment, as this is now an acronym that stands for "greatest of all time."

Lit: If something is "lit," it means it's super cool or "on fire."

On point: Outstanding, perfectly executed.
    
Read: To "read" someone means you're calling them out for their bad behavior.

Savage: Someone who "roasts" people nonstop and doesn't care what others will say.

Ship: Short for "romantic relationship," sometimes used as a verb.

The tea: When someone is dishing "the tea," they're gossiping, particularly with the juiciest or most dramatic gossip.

Thirsty: If someone's "thirsty," it means they're a little too eager or even desperate.

Throw shade: To "throw shade" means to insult or say something unkind about someone.

Woke: Slang for "awakened," as in being highly aware of social injustices.

YOLO: An acronym for "you only live once," encouraging people to seize the day.
    "Of course you should go on that trip to Dublin, JPS! YOLO!"

Maybe Mr. Hot Coco could explain Kansas for us all...

From A Year with Rilke, January 13 Entry
Be Ahead of All Parting, from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be. And know as well the need to /not/ be:
let that ground of all that changes
bring you to completion now.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.




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



*Please make me one with everything.