And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, March 24, 2021, the 12th Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of spring, and the 83rd day of the year, with 282 days remaining.
Wannaska Nature Update for March 24, 2021
Skunks do not hibernate, and they are now emerging from their dens.
Nordhem Lunch: Closed.
Days with Chairman Joe on planet Earth: 27,027.
Days until his next birthday: 3.
Earth/Moon Almanac for March 24, 2021
Sunrise: 7:18am; Sunset: 7:42pm; 3 minutes, 36 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 2:30pm; Moonset: 5:49am, waxing gibbous, 75% illuminated.
Temperature Almanac for March 24, 2021
Average Record Today
High 38 64 45
Low 18 -20 27
March 24 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day
- National Cheesesteak Day
- National Equal Pay Day
March 24 Word Riddle
Where do Generals keep their armies?*
March 24 Pun
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
March 24 The Roseau Times-Region Headline:
Roseau Police Follow Flock of Birds to Pencer Marijuana Patch: No Tern Left Unstoned
March 24 Definition of the Week
FLATTERY: The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.
Edith Sitwell
March 24 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 1731 Jerome (aka Hieronimus) de Salis naturalized as British by Act of Parliamentary.
- 1824 First performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.
- 1853 Anti-slavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, first published in Windsor, Ontario, edited by Samuel Ringgold Ward and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first black woman publisher in North America.
- 1955 Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premieres.
March 24 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day
- 1693 John Harrison, English carpenter and clock-maker who invented the Marine chronometer.
- 1820 Fanny Crosby, American poet and composer.
- 1830 Robert Hamerling, Austrian poet and playwright.
- 1879 Neyzen Tevfik, Turkish philosopher, poet, and composer.
- 1887 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
- 1912 Dorothy Height, African-American educator and activist.
- 1920 Mary Stolz, American author.
March 24 Word Fact
The word euouae, a noun, defined as a type of cadence in medieval music, is the longest all-vowels word.
March 24, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 21 of 52
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
- abject: ˈabˌjekt adj., (of something bad) experienced or present to the maximum degree.
- chirospasm: (KAHY-roh-spaz-uhm) n., spasm of the muscles of the hand, as in writers’ cramp.
- dolmen: n., a megalithic tomb with a large flat stone laid on upright ones, found chiefly in Britain and France.
- equerry: an officer of the British royal household who attends or assists members of the royal family; HISTORICAL: an officer of the household of a prince or noble who had charge over the stables.
- griffonage: illegible handwriting.
- minnock: [MIN-uhk] n., a favorite darling, or person who is the object of one’s affection.
- nurdle: a tiny dab of toothpaste.
- palpebrous: PAL-puh-brus adj., having thick or bushy eyebrows.
- rasceta: the lines on the inside surface of the wrist.
- stook: a group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field.
March 24, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Tongue-twister
ˈtəNGˌtwistər, noun, a sequence of words or sounds, typically of an alliterative kind, that are difficult to pronounce quickly, correctly, and repeatedly, such as, tie twine to three tree twigs. Many tongue-twisters have been categorized on a "confusion matrix" of 1,620 phonemes compiled by MIT researchers, where among the most common phoneme conflicts include l being mistaken for r, s for sh, f for p, r for l, and w for r. The American Sign Language equivalent is known as the finger-fumbler.
For the serious minded Wannaskan Almanac reader, tongue-twisters can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency, especially for those introvert writers who haven’t spoken to another human being for months. For the rest of us, tongue-twisters produce humorous (sometimes humorously vulgar) results when mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value. Fun at Zoom parties!
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve proven that you can read. Now it’s time to test your pronunciation skills, which means that you must speak the following out loud, quickly, and repeat at least three times. Please let us know if you make a You Tube video of your effort, and Word-Wednesday will post the link for your fellow readers to marvel at your pronunciation skills.
Brisk, brave brigadiers
Brandished broad, bright blades
blunderbusses, and bludgeons --
Balancing them badly.
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter makes better batter.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better.
If you must cross a coarse, cross cow across a crowded cow crossing, cross the cross, coarse cow across the crowded cow crossing carefully. [The most difficult according to The Guinness Book of World Records.]
How can clam cream in a clean cream can?
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
Can you can a canned can into an un-canned can like a canner can can a canned can into an un-canned can?
If a dog chews shoes, whose shows does she choose?
Ingenious iguanas improvising an intricate impromptu on impossibly-impractical instruments.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. [The most difficult according to MIT.]
Round the rough and rugged rock the ragged rascal rudely ran.
Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery.
Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep. The sevens ill sheep Silly Sally shooed shilly-shallied south. These sheep shouldn't sleep in a shack; sheep should sleep in a shed.
The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.
Shep Schwab shopped at Scott's Schnapps Salol shop; one shot of Scott's Schnapps stopped Schwab's watch.
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.
She sells sea shells by the seashore.
Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks.
Cecily thought Sicily less thistlely than Thessaly.
Six sleek swans swam swiftly southwards.
[Make sure the children leave the room before you try the following.]
I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.
The sixth sitting sheet-slitter slit six sheets.
Send toast to ten tense stout saints' ten tall tents.
English can be understood through tough thorough thought though.
The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.
Thirty-three thirsty, thundering thoroughbreds thumped Mr. Thurber on Thursday.
Thirty-three thousand feathers on a thrushes throat.
Two tiny timid toads trying to trot to Tarrytown.
I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish he wish you wish to wish.
How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck,
he would,
as much as he could,
and chuck as much wood
as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck
could chuck
wood.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wussy wasn't fuzzy,
was he?
Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie.
Shorties are fun, too:
A proper copper coffee pot
Red leather, yellow leather,
Red lorry, yellow lorry.
Irish wristwatch, Swiss wristwatch
Peggy Babcock
[Once again, make sure the children leave the room before you try the following.]
Old Mother Hunt had a rough cut punt.
Not a punt cut rough,
But a rough cut punt.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably up for extended tongue-twister training, as in these rap song lyrics by Mac Lethal.
From A Year with Rilke, March 24 Entry
Mirrors, from Second Duino Elegy
Any angel is frightening.
Yet, because I know of you,
I invoke you in spite of myself,
you lethal birds of the soul.
Fated to be happy from the beginning of time,
creation’s spoiled immortal darlings,
summits of the cosmos shining at dawn,
pollen from heavenly blossoms, limbs of light,
hallways, stairs, thrones carved from existence,
shields of ecstasy, shrines for delight—
and suddenly, each one, mirror:
where our own evanescent beauty
is gathered into an enduring countenance.
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.
*Up their sleevies.
I am an abject writer with brain and writing fried
ReplyDeleteIt’s not just writers’ cramp that you do spy
but rather shame of my pages slain with griffonage bloody
my scribble ‘tis so bad when I write I wear a hoodie.
You see, it’s chirospasm plagues my script
If my pages had faces, they’d look most palpebrous
My cursive scrawl makes me no minnock of Horace
He bids boos and vegies be thrown by the chorus
In all the Ars Poetica I find the man’s incantations
no help for my horrid prose frustrations
I’d blot all pages if I had lots of white-out puddles
but all l have to hand are toothpaste nurdles
that neither hide my pages nor my valley-like rasceta
So fickle muse of the pen, I foreswear and hence forget ya’
Oh, Prince of Writers, send your equerry forthwith
let my hand drop the pen and be done with it
Command him to leave the stables and take me to a tomb with dolmen
My writer’s hand is spent, my fingers swollen
And as for my productions, stand up my sheets like rows of rotting stooks
On my gravestone write, “The muses surely have forsook
this whining writer who never penned poem nor book