Word-Wednesday for April 7, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, April 7, 2021, the 14th Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of spring, and the 97th day of the year, with 268 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for April 7, 2021
Coming soon to Wannaska!

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for April 7, 2021
Sunrise: 6:48am; Sunset: 8:03pm; 3 minutes, 32 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 5:42am; Moonset: 3:14pm, waning gibbous, 18% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for April 7, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             46                     79                     56
Low              25                     -3                      41


April 7 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Beer Day
• National Coffee Cake Day
• National Girl Me Too Day
• National No Housework Day
• National Bookmobile Day
• National Walking Day
• Childhelp National Day of Hope
• International Beaver Day

April 7 Word Riddle
Why did Shakespeare only write in pen?*


April 7 Pun
Those who confuse burro and burrow obviously do not know their *ss from a hole in the ground.


April 7 Definition of the Week
COMMITTEE: A cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured, and then quietly strangled.

Sir Barnett Cocks

April 7 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1521 Inquisitor-general Adrian Boeyens bans Lutheran books.
• 1724 Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
• 1805 Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
• 1940 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

April 7 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1770 William Wordsworth, English poet.
• 1883 Gino Severini, Italian-French painter and author.
• 1889 Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet and educator, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1897 Harald Sigurd Johan Sæverud, Norwegian composer.
• 1915 Billie Holiday, American singer-songwriter and actress.
• 1920 Ravi Shankar, Bengali Brahmin sitar master and Indian classical music composer.
• 1927 Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian percussionist, and a very fun name to say out loud.
• 1938 Iris Johansen, American author.
• 1939 Francis Ford Coppola.
• 1946 Herménégilde Chiasson, Canadian poet, playwright.

April 7 Word Fact
underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters und.


April 7, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 23 of 52
Endless unfolding of words of ages!
And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.

A word of the faith that never balks,
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.

It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,
That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.

I accept Reality and dare not question it,
Materialism first and last imbuing.

Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!
Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,
This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of the old cartouches,
These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas.
This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a mathematician.

Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!
Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,
I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.

Less the reminders of properties told my words,
And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipt,
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
abscission: abˈsiZHən n., the natural detachment of parts of a plant, typically dead leaves and ripe fruit.
bimble: ‘bɪmbəl v., to move at a leisurely pace, esp. on foot; to amble, wander.
chivvy: v., tell (someone) repeatedly to do something.
enharmonic: relating to notes that are the same in pitch (in modern tuning) though bearing different names (e.g., F sharp and G flat or B and C flat); of or having intervals smaller than a semitone (e.g. between notes such as F sharp and G flat, in systems of tuning which distinguish them).
gubbertushed: GUH-buhr-tuhsh’t adj., buck-toothed; having large projecting or disorderly teeth.
macrotous: mah-KROH-tuhs adj., having rather large ears.
nummamorous: money-loving.
octothorp: AHK-toh-thawrp n., an alternate term for the # symbol.
peroration: n., the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience.
stot: to pronk.


April 7, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Lost Words for Adults   
A previous addition of Word-Wednesday addressed the ways that children lose words, especially those words related to nature. This week we look at the historical loss of words from the vocabularies of all English speakers - words that age out - no longer used because they become forgotten or irrelevant.

Slang is one of the most common forms of words that English losses as times change and a slang term becomes passé.  Other common reasons for lost words relates to a population’s literacy and/or laziness. As demonstrated by the list below, many useful words are highly specific and/or polysyllabic.  Other words drop away because their original meaning becomes unseemly, distasteful, or politically incorrect with respect to modern usage.

abligurition: əˌblɪɡjʊˈɹɪʃən v., spending lavish amounts of money on food.

cacoethes: ˌkakəˈwēT͟Hēz n., the irresistible urge to do something inadvisable.

callipygian: ˌkaləˈpijēən adj., having beautiful, well-shaped buttocks.

dysania: n., the extreme difficulty one experiences when getting out of bed in the morning.

frobly-mobly: adj., neither well nor unwell.

fudgel: v., the act of giving the impression of working but actually doing nothing.

groke: n., someone who stares at you when you eat hoping you will share.

grufeling: v., to lie wrapped up and in a comfortable manner.

grumbletonians: n., people who are angry or unhappy with the government.

kakistocracy: n., goverment by the least qualified or worst people.

lanspresado: n., someone who always conveniently shows up with no money.

perendinate: v., to put off until the day after tomorrow.

philogrobilized: v., having a hangover but without admitting to actually drinking.

pig puff: n., a young woman with the manners of an old one.

shivviness: n., the uncomfortable feeling of wearing new underwear.

slugabed: n., a person who stays in bed after the usual or proper time to get up.

snollygoster: n., a person who has intelligence but no principles, especially a politician.

twatting: v., gossiping idly about unimportant things.

uhtceare: ˈuːhtˌt͡ʃæːɑ̯re v., lying awake and worrying about the day ahead.

ultracrepidarian: n., someone who gives opinions about topics they know nothing about.


From A Year with Rilke, April 7 Entry
Solitude Will Be a Support, from Worpswede, July 16, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet

It is good that you are about to enter a profession [the military] that will make you self-sufficient and set you on your own feet. Wait patiently to see if your inner life narrows in the grip of this profession. I consider it to be a very difficult and challenging one, for it is greatly burdened with conventions and allows little room for personal interpretations of its duties. But in the midst of these very unfamiliar conditions your inner solitude will be a support and a home to you. It will be the starting point of all your journeys.



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.

*Because pencils confused him — 2B or not 2B?