Word-Wednesday for May 26, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, May 26, 2021, the 21st Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of spring, and the 146th day of the year, with 219 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for May 26, 2021
The blueberries are flowering up nicely!

Dandelion follow up from two weeks ago:

Dandelions have to grow tall in the forest to reach the sunlight...

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for May 26, 2021
Sunrise: 5:30am; Sunset: 9:13pm; 2 minutes, 0 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 9:57pm; Moonset: 5:36am, waxing gibbous, 99% illuminated.

For early risers, today's lunar eclipse begins at 3:47am, and reaches its maximum by 5:36am.

Temperature Almanac for May 26, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             67                     88                     55
Low              45                     27                     33


May 26 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Blueberry Cheesecake Day
• National Paper Airplane Day
• National Senior Health & Fitness Day

May 26 Word Riddle
What are the first words in Shakespeare’s Hamlet?*


May 26 Pun
She was only a whiskey maker, but I loved her still.


May 26 Etymology Word of the Week

Click the map for a larger version.

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

• 1857 US slave Dred Scott and family freed by owner Henry Taylor Blow, only 3 months after US courts ruled against them in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
• 1897 Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker is published.
• 1930 Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution.

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

• 1782 Joseph Drechsler, Czech composer.
• 1822 Edmond de Goncourt, French author.
• 1856 George Templeton Strong, American composer.
• 1873 Olaf Gulbransson, Norwegian artist.
• 1877 Isadora Duncan.
• 1886 Al Jolson [Asa Yoelson].
• 1920 Peggy Lee [Norma Delores Egstrom].
• 1926 Miles Davis.
• 1951 Sally Ride, American astronaut, first American woman to go to space.
• 1966 Helena Bonham Carter.

May 26, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 30 of 52
All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch?)

Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
Only what nobody denies is so.)

A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,
I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,
And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,
And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.


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

• amblypygi: /无鞭目/ n.,  blunt rumped, an ancient order of arachnid chelicerate arthropods also known as whip spiders and tailless whip scorpions.
• bryology: /brīˈ-älə-jē/ n., the study of mosses and liverworts.
• catkin: /ˈkat-kən/ n., a flowering spike of trees such as willow and hazel. Catkins are typically downy, pendulous, composed of flowers of a single sex, and wind-pollinated.
• exuviae: /ehk-ZOO-vee-ahy/ n.pl., the cast or sloughed skin of an animal, especially that of a snake or an insect larva.
• fard: /fahrd/ v., to apply cosmetics to (the face); n., facial cosmetics.
• illaqueate: /ILL-uh-kweet/ v., to trap or ensnare; to entangle or capture.
• liverwort: /ˈlivərˌwôrt/ n., a small flowerless green plant with leaflike stems or lobed leaves, occurring in moist habitats. Liverworts lack true roots and reproduce by means of spores released from capsules.
• omnific: ɑm-ˈnɪ-fɪk adj., creating all things.
• pullulate: /ˈpəl-yə-ˌlāt/ v., multiply or spread prolifically or rapidly.
• sphallolalia: /SFAHL-oh-LAY-lee-uh/ n., casually flirtatious talk that leads nowhere.

May 26, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Fart Euphemisms
Continuing our exploration of the fascinating word fart and the phenomenon of English euphemisms,  today Word-Wednesday explores the many more mild or indirect words and expressions so often substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt or unpleasant or embarrassing in some company. Here are butt a few:

Air biscuit
Answering the call of the wild burrito
Baking brownies
Barn burner
Benchwarmer
Booty bomb
Break wind
Breezer
Bronx cheer
Bubbler
Bumsen burner
Butt dumpling
Cheek squeak
Cheeser
Cut the cheese
Fire in the hole
Fizzle
Free speech
Horton hears a poo
One-cheek squeak
Open one's lunch box
Pop tart
Raspberry tart
Shoot a bunny
Sphincter siren
Step on a duck
Thunder from down under
Trump [as in trumpet, a word dating back to the 15th century]
Whoopee whopper

Add your own personal favorite as a comment. 

Those interested in further study might peruse:  

Who Cut the Cheese? a parable of personal responsibility   

Did Somebody Step on a Duck? A Natural History of the Fart 

Blame It On The Dog: A Modern History of the Fart 

The Fart Before Christmas: A Christmas Farting Coloring Book for Kids and Adults 

The Fart Tootorial: Farting Fundamentals, Master Blaster Techniques, and the Complete Toot Taxonomy.


From A Year with Rilke, May 26 Entry
Though We Yearn, from the Fourth Duino Elegy

We, though we yearn for the One,
already feel the pull of other things.
Are not lovers ever pushing
at each other limits? Lovers,
who promised each other
vastness, hunt, and home…



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.


*Who’s there?