Word-Wednesday for June 15, 2022

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of new words... the trill of frippary... and the apogee of offbeat... the human drama of semantic explication...here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, June 15, 2022, the twenty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the twelfth and last Wednesday of spring, and the 166th day of the year, with 199 days remaining.


Wannaska Phenology Update for June 15, 2022
Blueberry Forecast
Up until yesterday's intense thunderstorm, this year's blueberry crop was looking exceptional. Unfortunately, the wind and driving rain knocked off many of the blueberry flowers.

June 15 Fickle Pickle Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


June 15 Nordhem Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.
idemx rilgl

Earth/Moon Almanac for June 15, 2022
Sunrise: 5:21am; Sunset: 9:29pm; 29 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 11:31pm; Moonset: 6:01am, waning gibbous, 99% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for June 15, 2022
                Average            Record              Today
High             72                     90                     77
Low              51                     33                     58


Days since Word-Wednesday published the Palmville Press email address: 1,295


June 15 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Megalodon Day
• Nature Photography Day
• National Smile Power Day
• Global Wind Day
• National Beer Day (United Kingdom)

June 15 Word Riddle
What do you call a hen who can county her own eggs.?*


June 15 Word Pun
                                                      

                                           Ni!                                         Ni!

                                                \                                    /

 

June 22 Walking into a Bar Grammar

A false statement, a true statement, and an invented statement walk into a bar…

The bartender looks up and says, "Before you order, we've got a syntax here." 

June 15 Etymology Word of the Week
forgotten
/fərˈɡätn/ adj., past participle of forget, Old English forgietan "lose the power of recalling to the mind; fail to remember; neglect inadvertently," from for-, used here probably with privative force, "away, amiss, opposite" + gietan "to grasp" (see get (v.)). To "un-get," hence "to lose" from the mind. A common Germanic construction (compare Old Saxon fargetan, Old Frisian forjeta, Dutch vergeten, Old High German firgezzan, German vergessen "to forget"). The physical sense would be "to lose (one's) grip on," but that is not recorded in any historical Germanic language.


June 15 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 763 BC Assyrians record a solar eclipse that will be used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.
• 1215 King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede, near Windsor, England.
• 1907 Researcher George Soper publishes the results of his investigation into recent typhoid outbreaks in the New York area and announces that Mary Mallon [Typhoid Mary] is the likely source of the outbreak.
• 1982 Supreme Court rules all children, regardless of citizenship, are entitled to a public education.

June 15 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 28 Emperor Ming of Han [Liu Yang], Chinese Emperor of the Han dynasty.
• 1594 Nicolas Poussin, French painter.
• 1809 François-Xavier Garneau, French Canadian poet.
• 1821 Nikolay Zaremba, Russian composer and teacher of Tchaikovsky.
• 1826 Josef Pischna, Czech musician.
• 1843 Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer.
• 1888 Ramon Lopez Velarde, Mexican poet.
• 1902 Charles E. Kelly, Irish cartoonist.
• 1914 Saul Steinberg, Romanian-American cartoonist and illustrator.
• 1920 Amy Clampitt, American poet.
• 1923 Erroll Garner, American jazz pianist.
• 1926 Jan Carlstedt, Swedish composer.
• 1931 Bernice Gera, first woman umpire in US pro baseball.
• 1954 James Belushi, American comedian.
• 1971 Bif Naked [Beth Torbert], Canadian singer-songwriter.

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

• batrachomyomachy: /BAT-RACK-oh-my-OHM-ma-kee/ n., the battle between the frogs and mice; a petty quarrel.
• dunkelflaute: /ˈdʊŋ-kəl-ˌflaʊt-ə/ n., GERMAN dark doldrums, known in meteorological literature as anticyclonic gloom) is a term used in the renewable energy sector to describe a period of time in which little to no energy can be generated with the use of wind and solar power.
• epistrophe: /i-ˈpi-strə-(ˌ)fē/ n., repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect (such as Lincoln’s “of the people, by the people, for the people”).
• fika: /FAI·kuh/ n., SWEDISH coffee.
• glassine: /gla-SEEN/ n., a thin semitransparent paper that is glossy, dense, and highly resistant to the passage of air and grease. It is commonly used as a wrapper for candy or baked goods.
• limerence: /LIM-er-ehns/ n., the emotional state of being in love: a heightened state of awareness and energy obsessively focused on the object of affection; the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship; a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and have one’s feelings reciprocated.
• mammothrept: /MAM-uh-thrept/ n., a spoilt child brought up by their grandmother; a person of immature judgment.
• prolusion: /prōˈ-l(y)o͞o-ZHən/ n., a preliminiary action or event; a prelude.
• recumbentibus: /rih-kuhm-BEN-tih-buhs/ n. a coup de grâce; a potent strike or knockout blow, either physical or verbal.
• serotinal: /si-ROT-n-l, ser-uh-TAHYN-l ] adj., pertaining to or occurring in late summer.

June 15, 2022 Word-Wednesday Feature
apophasis
/ə-PAW-fə-sis/ n., from Ancient Greek ἀπόφασις (apóphasis), from ἀπόφημι (apóphemi) "to say no"; a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up. Accordingly, it can be seen as a rhetorical relative of irony, where someone says something by saying they won’t be saying it.

Most people hear of apophasis in a religious context, such as the ineffability of God. MPR fans will recognize the following example from Krista Tippet's show, On Being, from her April 12, 2012 interview with Christian Wiman:

It’s why I’m drawn to mystics like Meister Eckhart and more contemporary ones like Simone Weil and the language of apophasis, where you state something, but the statement sort of unstates itself. Meister Eckhart said, “We pray to God to be free of God. We ask God to be free of God.”

Popular among politicians, Abraham Lincoln, one of the best presidential orators, was particularly fond of it:

I will not say that he willfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately.

1858 speech in Springfield, Illinois

I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house.

1858 debate with Stephen Douglas

Another far more recent president is famous for his apophasis, so he shall remain unidentified and uncited.

Some of America's best novelists used apophasis:

The doctrine which I imagine she stuffs into the pretty heads of your girl-guests is almost vengeful. A sort of moral fire-and-sword doctrine. How far the lesson is wise is not for me to say.

Joseph Conrad, Chance

We will not speak of all Queequeg’s peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Across the pond, Chaucer used the following in "The Knight's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales:

You may expect me to comment on the music, and the service, at the feast – on the gifts that were given to high and low – on the rich furnishings of Theseus’ palace – or on the order of guests on the dais – or on the ladies who were fairest or most expert at dancing – or who sang best – or who sang most passionately of love – but I am afraid you will be disappointed. You will not hear from me about the tame hawks that strutted on their perches, or about the mastiffs lying upon the floor of the hall.

Probably the most famous literary use of apophasis is in William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2, just after Marc Antony’s famous “lend me your ears” monologue. Marc Antony goes on to speak of Caesar’s will, where despite all the wordplay, speaks of the legal document:

 Have patience, gentle friends. I must not read it.
 It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.
 You are not wood, you are not stones, but men:
 And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,
 It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
 ’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs,
 For if you should, O what would come of it?

If you prefer modern cinema to the stage, there's always Tony Stark's self-promotion from Iron Man 2:

I’m not saying I’m responsible for this country’s longest run of uninterrupted peace in 35 years! I’m not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a phoenix metaphor been more personified! I’m not saying Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sipping on an iced tea, because I haven’t come across anyone man enough to go toe to toe with me on my best day! It’s not about me.

The world awaits its first apophatic squib.


From A Year with Rilke, June 15 Entry
Bowl of Roses (III), from New Poems

And this above all: that through these petals
light must pass. From a thousand skies,
each drop of darkness is filtered out
and the glow at the core of each flower
grows stronger and rises into life.

And the movement of the roses
has a vibrancy none could discern,
were it not for what it ignites
in the universe entire…

One could say they were self-contained
if self-contained meant
to transform the world outside,
patience of springtime, guilt and restlessness,
the secrecy of fate and the darkness of Earth at evening—
on out to the streaming and fleeing of clouds
and, farther yet, the orders of the stars—
take it all and turn it into
a handful of inwardness.

See how it lies at ease in these open roses.

 Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses, by Vincent van Gogh 

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.




*a mathemachicken