Word-Wednesday for January 4, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 4, 2023, the first Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of winter, and the 4th day of the year, with 361 days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 4, 2023
Snowstorms
/ˈsnō-ˌstôrm/ n., a heavy fall of snow, especially with a high wind, see blizzard. Severe snowstorms in the Midwest have been recorded from October through April, but January is the most common month for snowstorms to happen.

By way of reminder, make sure that your children know how to prepare for winter travel, using the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration guidelines for a prepared vehicle:
Carry items in your vehicle to handle common winter driving-related tasks, and supplies you might need in an emergency, including:

• a snow shovel, broom, and ice scraper;
• abrasive material (sand or kitty litter), in case your vehicle gets stuck in the snow;
• jumper cables, flashlight, and warning devices (flares and emergency markers);
• blankets for protection from the cold; and
• a cell phone and charger, water, food, and any necessary medicine.

January 4 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 4 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 4, 2023
Sunrise: 8:17am; Sunset: 4:40pm; 1 minute, 17 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 2:29pm; Moonset: 6:43am, waxing gibbous, 93% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 4, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             14                     39                     21
Low             -6                    -42                      2
 

For our southern Minnesota friends:

Snow flakes
By Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town –
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down –
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig –
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!

Mantric Blizzard as Space
By  Will Alexander 

A continent
that has made a covenant with its own ruin
has made the skies starved
has made stone momentarily disadvantage itself

Its circumstance deeper than tremors remains equational habit miming itself
via counted tablets of time

not a mantric blizzard of space into empty air
but every piece of ice as mathematical symbol

not a living quotient
but a dazed nutrient gone awry

a dark veering
stumbling over its own loins

& because
I am at nerves’ end
I can only breathe mantras
& live within


January 4 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• World Hypnotism Day
• World Braille Day
• National Missouri Day
• National Trivia Day
• National Spaghetti Day
• The eleventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
I sent eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a-leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-laying
Five gold rings (five golden rings)
Four calling birds
Three French hens
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

January 4 Word Riddle
What is the most common stress-related diagnosis on January 1 each year?*


January 4 Word Pun
Leather is rated based on texture. Cows with abundant water sources typically have softer hides, rated A. Hides from cows living in hot, dry climates are typically D hide-rated.


January 4 Walking into a Bar Grammar
C, E-flat, and G go into a bar.
The bartender says, “Sorry, but we don’t serve minors.”


January 4 Etymology Word of the Week
blizzard
/ˈbli-zərd/ n., a severe snowstorm with high winds and low visibility, from 1859, origin obscure (perhaps somehow connected with blaze, and compare blazer; it came into general use in the U.S. in this sense in the hard winter of 1880-81. OED says it probably is "more or less onomatopœic," and adds "there is nothing to indicate a French origin." Earlier, it typically meant "a violent blow," also "hail of gunfire" in American English from 1829, and blizz "violent rainstorm" is attested from 1770. The winter storm sense perhaps is originally a colloquial figurative use of these in the Upper Midwest.

In the United States, the  National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a severe  snowstorm characterized by strong winds causing blowing snow that results in low visibilities. The difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind, not the amount of snow. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have sustained winds or frequent gusts that are greater than or equal to 56 km/h (35 mph) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces  visibility to 400 m or 0.25 mi or less and must last for a prolonged period of time—typically three hours or more.


January 4 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1847 Manuscripts of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey sent to publisher T.C. Newby.
• 1868 Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" is first serialized in All the Year Round owned by Charles Dickens.
• 1907 George Bernard Shaw's play Don Juan in Hell premieres.
• 1921 Eugene O'Neill's Diff'rent premieres.
• 1943 Thomas Mann completes his tetralogy, Joseph & His Brothers.
• 1961 Longest recorded strike ends as the Danish barbers' assistants end a 33 year strike.

January 4 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1643 Isaac Newton.
• 1785 Jacob Grimm, editor of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
• 1809 Louis Braille, inventor of reading and writing system for the blind.
• 1874 Josef Suk, Czech violinist.
• 1878 Alfred Edgar Coppard, English short story writer.
• 1905 Padraic Fallon, Irish writer.
• 1940 Gao Xingjian, Chinese writer.
• 1943 Doris Kearns Goodwin, American historian and writer.
• 1951 Ken Bruen, Irish writer.

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

• ambages: /am-BEY-jeez/ n., winding, roundabout paths or ways.
• breviloquent: /brə-ˈvil-ə-kwənt/ adj., (of a person, speech, or style of writing) using very few words; concise.
• clichéoclast: /klē-ˈSHā-ō-əˌ-klast/ n., a person who attacks a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.
• crankle: /ˈkraŋk-əl/ v., to break into turns, bends, or angles.
• esurient: /ə-ˈso͝o-rē-ənt/ adj., hungry or greedy.
• floccinaucinihilipilification: /FLOK-suh-NAH-sun-nee-HIL-uh-pil-uh-fi-KAY-shun/ n., the act or an instance of estimating something to be without value; v., to estimate something or somebody as worthless or trivial.
• lotos: /ˈləʊ-təs/ n., (in Greek mythology) a fruit that induces forgetfulness and a dreamy languor in those who eat it.
• mullion: /ˈməl-y(ə)n/ n., a vertical bar between the panes of glass in a window.
• porte cochère: /ˌpôrt kōˈSHer/ n., a covered entrance large enough for vehicles to pass through, typically opening into a courtyard.
• skerrick: /ˈske-rik/ n., a very small amount or portion, particularly used in the negative.

January 4, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
Latin-2023
Zadie Smith recently wrote a movie review in The New York Review, which contained a word that sent our Word-Wednesday team scampering for a definition:

The very phrase ad hominem has been rendered obsolete, almost incomprehensible. An argument that is directed against a person, rather than the position they are maintaining? Online a person is the position they’re maintaining and vice versa. Opinions are identities and identities are opinions. Unfollow!

ad hominem: /ˌad ˈhä-mə-nəm/ adj., (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

As we begin a new year, here's a quick Latin refresher to improve your reading and creative writing.

• ad hoc: formed for a particular purpose
• ad lib: improvised
• alea iacta est: the die is cast
• alma mater: nourishing mother
• alter ego: the other I
• amor vincit omnia: love conquers all
• ante meridiem/post meridiem: before midday/after midday
• ars longa, vita brevis: art is long, life is short
• audentes frtuna iuvat: fortune favors the bold
• barba non facit philosophum: a beard doesn't make one a philosopher
• bona fide: in good faith, genuine, authentic
• carpe diem: seize the day
• castigat ridendo mores: laughing corrects morals
• caveat: a stipulation or condition
• cave canem: beware the dog
• circa: approximately
• cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am
• consensus: agreement
• cui bono?: good for whom?
• de facto: in reality
• de jure: by law
• deus ex machina: god from the machine
• ergo: therefore
• errare humanum est: to err is human (with reference to the other party)
• et cetera: and so on, etc.
• excelsior: ever upward, Ula
• exempli gratia: for example, e.g.
• ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing
• ex temporare: without preparation
• festina lente: hurry slowly
• id est: it is, i.e.
• in vino veritas: in wine there is truth
• lupus in fabula: the wolf in the story, i.e., speak of the devil
• major: great
• mea culpa: through my own fault
• memento mori: remember that you will die
• mulgere hircum: to milk a male goat
• nitimur in vetitum: we strive for the forbidden
• pecunia non olet: money don't smell
• per capita: per person
• per diem: per day
• per se: specifically, by itself
• persona non grata: a person who is no longer welcome
• post mortem: after death
• post partum: after birth
• primae facie: at first sight
• quid pro quo: something for something
• requiescat in pace: rest in peace
• rigor mortis: stiffness after death
• sine qua non: without wich, not, something absolutely essential
• status quo: the state in which, existing state of affairs
• sui generis: of its/his/her/their own kind, unique
• verbatim: in exactly the same words
• verba volant, sed scripta manent: spoken words fly away, written words remain
• vice versa: the other way around

From A Year with Rilke, January 4 Entry
Life’s Bestowal of Riches, from Letter to Lisa Heise, May 19,1922

You might notice that in some ways the effects of our winter experiences are similar. You write of a constant sense of fullness, an almost overabundance of inner being, which from the outset counterbalances and compensates all deprivations and losses that might possibly come. In the course of my work this last long winter, I have experienced a truth more completely than ever before: that life’s bestowal of riches already surpasses any subsequent impoverishment. What, then, remains to be feared? Only that we might forget this! But around and within us, how much it helps to remember!

The Road to Clear Polyana
by Leonid Pasternak

Be better than yesterday,
carpe diem today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.






*Auld Langxiety.