Word-Wednesday for February 8, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for February 8, 2023, the sixth Wednesday of the year, the eighth Wednesday of winter, and the 39th day of the year, with 326 days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for February 8, 2023
Da Bar
Wannaska becomes famous for its winter wildlife, and as usual, the DNR takes the heat.

February 8 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


February 8 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for February 8 2023
Sunrise: 7:44am; Sunset: 5:32pm; 3 minutes, 14 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:43pm; Moonset: 9:13am, waning gibbous, 93% illuminated.

Temperature Almanac for February 8, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             16                     45                     33
Low              -8                   -55                     24


February 8 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Iowa Day
• National Kite Flying Day
• National Boy Scouts Day
• Laugh and Get Rich Day
• Parinirvana Day

February 8 Word Riddle
Why did the chicken to to the gym?*


February 8 Word Pun
People keep telling me I’m terrible at poetry because I’m dyslexic. But so far I’ve made three bowls and a vase, and they turned out great!


February 8 Walking into a Bar Grammar
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.


February 8 Etymology Word of the Week
February
/ˈfeb-rə-ˌwe-rē/ n., the second month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the last month of winter, from month following January, late 14c., ultimately from Latin februarius mensis "month of purification," from februare "to purify," from februa "purifications, expiatory rites" (plural of februum "means of purification, expiatory offerings"), which is of uncertain origin, said to be a Sabine word. De Vaan says from Proto-Italic f(w)esro-, from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning "the smoking" or "the burning" (thus possibly connected with fume (n.)). The sense then could be either purification by smoke or a burnt offering.

The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. The Old English name for it was solmonað, which is said to mean "mud month." English first borrowed the Roman name from Old French Feverier, which yielded Middle English Feverer, Feoverel, etc. (c. 1200) before the 14c. respelling to conform to Latin.


February 8 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1672 Isaac Newton reads his first optics paper before Royal Society in London.
• 1693 William & Mary College is chartered in Williamsburg in the Dominion and Colony of Virginia, the second in North America.
• 1743 Comet C/1743 C1 approaches within 0.0390 AUs of Earth.
• 1776 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Stella premieres.
• 1802 Simon Willard patents banjo clock.
• 1883 Louis Waterman begins experiment to invent the fountain pen.
• 1887 Aurora Ski Club of Red Wing, Minnesota becomes the first U.S. ski club.
• 1926 Sean O'Casey's Plough & Stars opens at Abbey Theater in Dublin.
• 1937 Maxwell Anderson's Masque of Kings premieres.
• 1944 First African American reporter accredited to White House, Harry McAlpin.
• 1969 Last edition of Saturday Evening Post.

February 8 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1552 Agrippa d'Aubigné, French poet.
• 1577 Robert Burton, British author of The Anatomy of Melancholy.
• 1612 Samuel Butler, English poet.
• 1675 Hugh Howard, Irish artist.
• 1688 Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher.
• 1708 Vaclav Jan Kopriva, Czech composer.
• 1807 Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, English sculptor.
• 1822 Maxime Du Camp, French writer.
• 1828 Jules Verne, French writer.
• 1851 Kate O'Flaherty Chopin, American writer.
• 1872 Theodor Lessing, German writer.
• 1878 Martin Buber, Austrian-Israeli dialogue philosopher.
• 1900 Guy Warrack, Scottish composer.
• 1906 Henry Roth, American writer.
• 1911 Elizabeth Bishop, American poet.
• 1926 Neal Cassady, American writer.
• 1927 Zdeněk Zouhar, Czech composer.
• 1931 John Williams, American composer.
• 1943 Pirzada Qasim, Pakistani poet.
• 1955 Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart, American professional wrestler.
• 1955 John Grisham, American writer.
• 1955 Nancy Oliver, American playwright.

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

• acmesthesia: /ak-muhs-THEE-zhuh/ n., awareness of sharp points through the sense of touch without experiencing pain.
• constatation: /ˌkän-ztə-ˈtā-shən/ n., basic assumption, assertion.
• dryad: /ˈdrī-əd/ n., (in folklore and Greek mythology) a nymph inhabiting a forest or a tree, especially an oak tree.
• frostification: /frôst-ə-fə-ˈkā-SHən/ n., an instance of hair turning grey or hoary.
• intergern: /IN-tehr-gurhn/ v., to exchange grins or snarls.
• maquillaged: /ˌmɑ-ki-ˈjɑʒd/ adj., wearing cosmetics, made up.
• porringer: /ˈpôr-ən-jər/ n., a small bowl, typically with a handle, used for soup, stew, or similar dishes.
• repristinate: /rē-ˈpri-stə-ˌnāt/ v., to restore to an original state or condition.
• strigiform: /STRIJ-uh-fawrm/ adj., of, pertaining, or belonging to the order Strigiformes, comprising the owls.
• wuzband: /ˈwəz-b(ə)n(d)/ n., a former husband, after dissolution of marriage.

February 8, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
2022 Words of the Year
An annual Word-Wednesday tradition, here are the Words of the Year for 2022 from the most popular dictionaries of the English language:

Oxford English Dictionary
goblin mode: /ˈɡäb-lən mōd/ n., a slang term, often used in the expressions "in goblin mode" or "to go goblin mode" – is "a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations." First seen on Twitter in 2009, goblin mode went viral on social media in February 2022, quickly making its way into newspapers and magazines. The term then rose in popularity over the months following as COVID-19 lockdown restrictions eased in many countries and people ventured out of their homes more regularly. 

OED's runner-up was metaverse: /ˈmed-ə-ˌvərs/ n., a (hypothetical) virtual reality environment in which users interact with one another’s avatars and their surroundings in an immersive way, sometimes posited as a potential extension of or replacement for the internet, World Wide Web, social media, etc.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary
gaslighting: /ˈɡæs-līd-iNG/ v., psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator, where usage increased by 1,740% in 2022. The term comes from the title of a 1938 play and the movie based on that play, the plot of which involves a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane. His mysterious activities in the attic cause the house’s gas lights to dim, but he insists to his wife that the lights are not dimming and that she can’t trust her own perceptions. In recent years, Merriam-Webster noted that the meaning of gaslighting increasingly referred to something simpler and broader: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for a personal advantage.” In this use, the word is at home with other terms relating to modern forms of deception and manipulation, such as fake news, deepfake, and artificial intelligence.

Merriam-Webster's runner-up was oligarch: /ˈäl-ə-ˌɡärk/ n., a ruler in an oligarchy; a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence (particularly with reference to individuals who benefited from the privatization of state-run industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

Dictionary.com
woman: /'woom–uhn/ n., an adult female person, where 2022 searches for the word increased more than 1,400% -- "a massive leap for such a common word". The biggest search spike started at the end of March, during a confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in April became the first Black woman to be confirmed as a US Supreme Court justice. Specifically, the surge in lookups came after she was asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn, "Can you provide a definition for the word woman?" Dictionary.com noted: "The prominence of the question and the attention it received demonstrate how issues of transgender identity and rights are now frequently at the forefront of our national discourse. More than ever, we are all faced with questions about who gets to identify as a woman (or a man, or neither). The policies that these questions inform transcend the importance of any dictionary definition—they directly impact people’s lives."

Ever the online gurus, one of Dictionary.com's runner-ups was quiet quitting: /'kwahy-it 'kwit-ing/ v., an informal term for the practice of reducing the amount of effort one devotes to one’s job, such as by stopping the completion of any tasks not explicitly stated in the job description, implying that this is done secretly or without notifying one’s boss or manager, where quiet quitting doesn’t actually refer to quitting a job, but to refer to different methods of reducing productivity or the amount of work one performs.

Collins Dictionary
permacrisis: /ˈpər-mə-,krī-səs/ n., an extended period of instability and insecurity, including political instability, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and the cost-of-living crisis. As the writer David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings – How Language Really Works “'Permacrisis' is a term that perfectly embodies the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner." 

Heavily focused on British English, one of Collins Dictionary's runner-ups for 2022 was partygate: /ˈpär-dē-ɡāt/ n., a political scandal in the United Kingdom about parties and other gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff held during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gatherings.

What's your choice of words that stand out for you in 2022?


From A Year with Rilke, February 8 Entry
Exposed, from Uncollected Poems

Exposed upon the mountains of the heart. See how small over there
the last outpost of words, and higher up,
just as small, one last farmyard of feeling.
Do you recognize it? Exposed
upon the mountains of the heart. Stony ground
under the hands.

Something still blooms here, on the dumb cliff face
blooms an unconscious weed, singing.
But where is the conscious one? He who began to be conscious
now is silent, exposed upon the mountain of the heart …

Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon
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.







*To work on his pecks.