Word-Wednesday for November 24, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, November 24, 2021, the 47th Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of fall, and the 328th day of the year, with 37 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for November 24, 2021
The wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, is an upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey, and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes, /ˌɡæl-ɪ-fɔːr-miːz/ heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that also includes chickens, quails, and other landfowl. Although Wannaska and surrounding areas are seeing more wild turkeys, they're currently lying low until Friday.

Nordhem Lunch: Today's specials include Hot Beef Sandwich, Chili and Grilled Cheese.


Earth/Moon Almanac for November 24, 2021
Sunrise: 7:47am; Sunset: 4:35pm; 2 minutes, 14 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:43pm; Moonset: 12:29pm, waning gibbous, 77% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for November 24, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             28                     52                     26
Low              13                    -23                      0


November 24 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Sardines Day
• Tie One On Day
• National Jukebox Day

November 24 Word Riddle
What word starts with E and ends with E but has only one letter in it?*


November 24 Word Pun
A goose walks into the Eagles in Warroad, and the bartender says,
“Hey buddy, your pants are down!”


November 24 Etymology Word of the Week
turkey: /ˈtər-kē/ n., 1540s, originally "guinea fowl" (Numida meleagris), a bird imported from Madagascar via Turkey, and called guinea fowl when brought by Portuguese traders from West Africa. The larger North American bird (Meleagris gallopavo) was domesticated by the Aztecs, introduced to Spain by conquistadors (1523) and thence to wider Europe. The word turkey first was applied to it in English 1550s because it was identified with or treated as a species of the guinea fowl, and/or because it got to the rest of Europe from Spain by way of North Africa, then under Ottoman (Turkish) rule. Indian corn was originally turkey corn or turkey wheat in English for the same reason.

The New World bird itself reputedly reached England by 1524 at the earliest estimate, though a date in the 1530s seems more likely. The wild turkey, the North American form of the bird, was so called from 1610s. By 1575, turkey was becoming the usual main course at an English Christmas. Meaning "inferior show, failure," is 1927 in show business slang, probably from the bird's reputation for stupidity. Meaning "stupid, ineffectual person" is recorded from 1951. Turkey shoot "something easy" is World War II-era, in reference to marksmanship contests where turkeys were tied behind a log with their heads showing as targets. To talk turkey (1824) supposedly comes from an old tale of a Yankee attempting to swindle an Indian in dividing up a turkey and a buzzard as food.


November 24 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1434 River Thames in London freezes over.
• 1628 John Ford's Lover's Melancholy premieres in London.
• 1715 London's Thames River freezes over.
• 1859 English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.
• 1862 Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbo published.
• 1869 American Woman's Suffrage Association forms.
• 1877 English author Anna Sewell sells her manuscript Black Beauty to Norwich publisher for £40.
• 1947 John Steinbeck's novella The Pearl published.
• 1983 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett published, the first book in the Discworld series.

November 24 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1394 Charles, Duke of Orléans, French poet.
• 1583 Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar, Spanish poet.
• 1632 Baruch "Benedict" de Spinoza, Amsterdam, rationalist philosopher.
• 1690 Charles Theodore Pachelbel, composer.
• 1713 Laurence Sterne, Irish novelist/satirist, author of Tristram Shandy.
• 1826 Collodi [Carlo Lorenzini], Italian author of Pinocchio.
• 1864 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter.
• 1868 Scott Joplin, American ragtime entertainer and composer.
• 1909 Cyprián Majerník, Czech painter.
• 1918 Captain Stubby [Tom Fouts], American author and comedian.
• 1927 Ahmadou Kourouma, Ivorian writer.
• 1940 Eric Wilson, Canadian children's author.
• 1948 Spider Robinson, Canadian science fiction author.
• 1961 Arundhati Roy, Indian activist and writer.

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

• alektorophobia: /ah-lek-toh-roh-FOH-bee-uh/ n., an extreme irrational fear of or aversion to chickens; from Greek “aléktōr” (rooster).
• bibacious: /bə-ˈbā-shəs/ adj., overly fond of drinking alcohol.
• cromulent: /ˈkrɑ-mjə-lənt/ adj., acceptable or adequate.
• echinate: /ih-‘kahy-neyt/ adj., bristly, prickly.
• gad: /ɡad/ v., go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.
• hamartia: /ˌhä-mär-ˈtēə/ n., a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine.
• lambent: /ˈlam-bənt/ adj., (of light or fire) glowing, gleaming, or flickering with a soft radiance.
• pasteurize: /ˈpas-CHə-rīz/ adj., too far to see.
• roister: /ˈrȯi-stər/ v., to engage in noisy revelry.
• suffonsified or sophonsified: /suh-FON-si-fide/ adj., satisfied or satiated, particularly in appetite; feeling full at the end of a meal.

November 24, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Gratitude
/ˈɡrad-ə-t(y)o͞od/ n., the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Traditional harvest festivals falling at the end of the year's growing season have been celebrated around the world since before people could begin to write. Such celebrations go back to pagan times in Britain, and early English settlers in North America brought the tradition with them to the New World.

In 1789, the first year of George Washington's presidency, he declared Thursday, Nov. 26th as "A day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God." New proclamations followed from subsequent presidents falling on different months and days, but in 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave the harvest celebration date some stability when he proclaimed the last Thursday in November as the official date of the holiday. Things worked out until 1933, and again in 1939 - years with two five-Thursday Novembers. In 1941, the U. S. Congress eliminated all future confusion by passing a law that made the fourth Thursday of November the official date of the American Thanksgiving holiday.

Word-Wednesday gives thanks for our many Wannaskan blessings by featuring the words of some famous authors on the subject of gratitude:

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

ANNE LAMOTT

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.

MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is 'good,' because it is good, if 'bad' because it works in us patience [and] humility.....

C.S. LEWIS

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

ISAAC WALTON

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

WILLIAM BLAKE

To be grateful for all life's blessing is the best condition for a happy life but this is not all. For there is another kind of gratitude the feeling that makes us thankful for suffering for the hard and heavy things of life, for the deepening of our natures which perhaps only suffering can bring.

THOMAS MANN

He who thanks but with the lips
Thanks but in part,
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.

J.A. SHEDD

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

STORM JAMESON

The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.

ROBERT LEWIS STEVENSON

Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping stones to greater experience.
Perhaps someday you will be thankful for some temporary failure in a particular direction.
BRIAN ADAMS

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

G.K. CHESTERTON

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

I am thankful that in a troubled world no calamity can prevent the return of spring.

HELEN KELLER

If the only prayer you say in your entire life is 'Thank You,' that would suffice.

MEISTER ECKHART

From A Year with Rilke, November 24 Entry
When Time Stops, from Book of Images

 
In the fading forest a bird call sounds.
How out of place in a fading forest.
And yet the bird call roundly rests
in this moment that it made,
as wide as the sky above the fading forest.

All things sound together in that cry:
the whole land seems to lie within it,
the great wind seems to rest within it,
and the moment, which wants to persist,
stops, still, as if knowing things
arising from that cry
that you would have to die to know.




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.

*ENVELOPE