Word-Wednesday for June 22, 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 22, 2022, the twenty-fifth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of summer, and the 173rd day of the year, with 192 days remaining.


Wannaska Phenology Update for June 22, 2022
Wild Roses are in Bloom!

Prairie Wild Rose (Rosa arkansana or wannaskansana) is now in full bloom throughout Palm Lake and Beaver Townships. Other roses native to Minnesota include Western wild rose (R macounii), smooth wild rose (R. blanda), prickly wild rose (R. acicularis). These  four native roses are highly variable in character, probably because they commonly hybridize in the wild. So they can be difficult to distinguish from one another.


June 22 Fickle Pickle Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


June 22 Nordhem Lunch:
Meatball Dinner
    Mashed potatoes & gravy
    Buttered corn
    Dinner roll

Taco Salad
    served in a crispy Burrito Bowl with all of the "fixings'

Soup & Sandwich
    "BOWL" broccoli cheese soup
    choice: turkey sandwich   ham sandwich   grilled cheese

Earth/Moon Almanac for June 22, 2022
Sunrise: 5:20am; Sunset: 9:31pm; 7 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 2:08am; Moonset: 3:11pm, waning crescent, 34% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for June 22, 2022
                Average            Record              Today
High             74                     93                     80
Low              53                     34                     65


June 22 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Chocolate Eclair Day
• National HVAC Tech Day
• National Kissing Day
• National Onion Rings Day
• Feast Day of Eusebius of Samosata (Eastern Orthodox Church)

June 22 Word Riddle
Why are there Pop Tarts but no Mom Tarts?*


June 22 Word Pun
Life is like a doughnut: you’re either in the dough, or you’re in the hole.


June 22 Walking into a Bar Grammar
A weasel walks into a bar.
The bartender says, "Wow! In all my years tending bar, I've never had a weasel stop by. What'll you have?”
"Pop!" goes the weasel.


June 22 Etymology Word of the Week

June 22 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1342 Bilbo Baggins returns to his home at Bag End, Shire Reckoning.
• 1633 Galileo Galilei forced to recant his Copernican views that the Earth orbits the Sun by the Pope (Vatican admits it was wrong on Oct 31, 1992).
• 1772 Somerset v Stewart court case finds slavery unsupported by English common law, encouraging the abolitionist movement.
• 1940 First Dairy Queen restaurant opened, in Joliet, Illinois.
• 1943 W.E.B. Du Bois becomes first Black member of National Institute of Letters.

June 22 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1767 Wilhelm von Humboldt, German philosopher.
• 1830 Theodor Leschetizky, Polish pianist.
• 1893 Osvald Chlubna, Czech composer.
• 1898 Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist, All Quiet on the Western Front.
• 1906 Billy Wilder.
• 1912 Vit Nejedly, Czech composer.
• 1932 Prunella Scales, British actress, Sybil in Fawlty Towers.
• 1933 Libor Pešek, Czech conductor.
• 1945 Jackie Daly, Irish musician.
• 1947 Octavia E[stelle] Butler, American sci-fi author.
• 1964 Dan Brown, American author.

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

• absinthian: /æb-ˈsɪn-θi-ən/ adj., of, relating to, or suggestive of wormwood; bitter, harsh. In later use also: of or relating to absinthe and its properties (esp. its yellow-green color).
• bavin: /ˈba-vən/ n., a bundle of brushwood or kindling used for fuel or in fences or drains.
• exclave: /‘eks-kleyv/ n., a portion of a country geographically separated from the main part by surrounding foreign territory.
• hogshead: /ˈhäɡz-ˌhed/ n., a measure of capacity for wine, equal to 63 gallons (238.7 liters) or for beer,equal to 64 gallons (245.5 liters).
• jawn: /jôn/ n., DIALECT, US, (chiefly in eastern Pennsylvania) used to refer to a thing, place, person, or event that one need not or cannot give a specific name to.
• klangfarbenmelodie: /klaNG-‘fär-ben-ˈmel-ə-dē/ n., GERMAN timbre melody.
• lucubrate: /LOO-kyoo-breyt/ v., to work, write, or study laboriously, especially at night.
• maangaar: /mon-GAR/ proper name, SOMALI newly developed word for autism in Somali, based on maan, which means mind, and gaar, which means unique.
• oscitancy: /ˈɑˈäs-ə-tən-sē/ n., drowsiness as evidenced by yawning; dullness; indolence, negligence, inattention.
• rhonchisonant: /ron-KIS-ə-nənt/ adj., that sounds like snoring or snorting.

June 22, 2022 Word-Wednesday Feature
anacoluthon
/ˌan-ə-kə-ˈlo͞o-THän/ n., from the Greek word anakolouthos, meaning “lacking sequence,” a literary device that occurs when the expected grammatical sequence of a sentence doesn’t occur. Instead, the grammatical flow is interrupted to start another sentence. Writers use this device to jar reader expectations to emphasize a change in logic or events or characterization, such as a sudden emotion. Many great authors have used this tool; here are but a few examples:

In The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll fills his pram with colorful images and language, and with his love for nonsense language and personification. In the poem’s most famous passage, the walrus interrupts himself with his list of “many things” in the middle of the pram, using words that don't seem to pair well:  

“The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
And cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

Shakespeare used anacoluthon frequently, especially when a character is attempting express a difficult or complicated thought or emotion. In these moments, the sentences of a characters thoughts interrupt one another and change the feeling of the syntax.  

I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall—I will do such things,
What they are, yet I know not

King Lear, Act II, Scene 4

As Lewis Thomas or Emily Dickenson would attest, a sentence interrupted with the punctuation a dash allows the actor/poet to speak more naturally, making the character seem more human and more relatable.

To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to - 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub?

Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1

In Ulysses, James Joyce uses stream of consciousness throughout the novel - a technique that lends itself to anacoluthons such as this one, to give the reader the sense of what and how the speaker is thinking, which is well outside the realm of standard syntax:

...I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time I’d have to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldn’t it ...

Or again, with this example from Ulysses:

… I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time I’d have to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldn’t it …

The Chairman, JPS, or Kim could probably provide us with many more examples from Ulysses.


From A Year with Rilke, June 22 Entry
I Find You There, from The Book of Hours I, 11

I find you there in all these things
I care for like a brother.
A seed, you nestle in the smallest of them,
and in the huge ones spread yourself hugely.

Such is the amazing play of the powers:
they give themselves so willingly,
swelling in the roots, thinning as the trunks rise,
and in the high leaves, resurrection.

The Mulberry Tree 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.





*the pastry-archy.