Word-Wednesday for May 10, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for May 10, 2023, the nineteenth Wednesday of the year, the eighth Wednesday of spring, and the one-hundred thirtieth day of the year, with two-hundred thirty-five days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for May 10, 2023
Porcupines Are Out

 

by Pam Shaw

Erethizon dorsatum, among Minnesota's most novel critters, are now out and about. Though they move slowly and have a low reproductive rate (a single newborn per conception), porcupines generally live a long life. Their secret? Yes, Ginny, they're actually born with quills. Test or expand your knowledge of our prickly neighbors with the following quiz.

On average, how many quills does single porcupine sport?
(a) 550; (b) 3,500 (c) 30,000; (d) 110,000

On average, how many barbs does each porcupine quill sport?
(a) 25; (b) 80; (c) 275; (d) 750

How do you know when a female porcupine is ready to breed?
(a) She holds her quills erect when walking.
(b) She finds a beach and lays on her back.
(c) She climbs a tree and starts screaming.
(d) She starts chasing males up trees.

Which items do porcupines not commonly consume?
(a) Nuts.
(b) Radiator hoses.
(c) Sushi.
(d) Tree bark.

What is a baby porcupine called?
(a) pup.
(b) porcupette.
(c) quillip.
(d) Spike.

What is the collective noun for a group of porcupines?
(a) a prunus.
(b) a prickle.
(c) a poke.
(d) a punch.

          (c) (d) (c) (b) (b)

Look for Saturn near the moon on Saturday.

Hummingbirds in Minnesota have made it to Nevis.


May 10 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


May 10 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for May 10 2023
Sunrise: 5:49am; Sunset: 8:51pm; 2 minutes, 51 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 2:01am; Moonset: 9:34am, waning gibbous, 74% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for May 10, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             60                     87                    76
Low              37                      20                   55

Saints
by Louis Jenkins

As soon as the snow melts the grass begins to grow. Even
though the daytime high is barely above freezing, even
though May is very like November, marsh marigolds bloom
in the swamp and the popple trees produce a faint green
that hangs under the low clouds like a haze over the valley.
This is the way the saints live, no complaints, no suspicion,
no surprise. If it rains, carry an umbrella, if it’s cold, wear
a jacket.

May 10 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• World Lupus Day
• National Washington Day
• National Clean Up Your Room Day
• National Lipid Day
• National Third Shift Workers Day
• National Shrimp Day
• National School Nurse Day
• National Receptionists Day
• National Stay Up All Night Night
• Feast Day of Catald

May 10 Word Riddle
Why didn’t Sven want to wear the hospital gown?*


May 10 Word Pun
Remains to be seen if glass coffins become popular.


May 10 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

He extracted from his quiver,
     Did the controversial Roman,
An argument well fitted
To the question as submitted,
Then addressed it to the liver,
     Of the unpersuaded foeman.
                                    Oglum P. Boomp


May 10 Etymology Word of the Week
parasite
/ˈper-ə-ˌsīt/ n., an organism living in, on, or with another organism in order to obtain nutrients, grow, or multiply often in a state that directly or indirectly harms the host, from 1530s, "a hanger-on, a toady, person who lives on others," from French parasite (16th century) or directly from Latin parasitus "toady, sponger," and directly from Greek parasitos "one who lives at another's expense, person who eats at the table of another," especially one who frequents the tables of the rich and earns his welcome by flattery, from noun use of an adjective meaning "feeding beside," from para- "beside" + sitos "grain, bread, food," a word of unknown origin. Scientific meaning "animal or plant that lives on or in and at the expense of another" is first recorded 1640s (implied in parasitical).

May 10 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1765 British Longitude Act awards clockmaker John Harrison £10,000 for the invention of a naval longitude clock.
• 1823 First steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrives at Fort Snelling.
• 1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for US presidency by Equal Rights Party.
• 1883 First appendectomy performed in North America by Abraham Groves in Canada.
• 1908 First Mother's Day observed.
• 1910 Halley's Comet closest approach to Earth in 1910 pass.
• 1922 Dr Ivy Williams is first woman to be called to the English Bar.

May 10 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1760 Johann Peter Hebel, German writer.
• 1843 Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish novelist.
• 1873 Carl Eldh, Swedish artist and sculptor.
• 1892 Jan Weiss, Czech writer.
• 1899 Fred Astaire.
• 1911 Bel Kaufman, American author.
• 1918 Desmond MacNamara, Irish painter, sculptor, and author.
• 1931 Yūzō Toyama, Japanese composer.
• 1937 Arthur Kopit, American playwright.
• 1960 Bono, Irish musician.
• 1969 John Scalzi, American writer.
• 1970 Perry Blake, Irish singer-songwriter.
• 1982 Jeremy Gable, American playwright.

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

• bisociation: /bī-ˌsō-s(h)ēˈ-ā-shən/ n., the simultaneous mental association of an idea or object with two fields ordinarily not regarded as related; the association of one idea with two different contexts, where the pun is perhaps the simplest form of biosociation.
• cullion: /KUHL-yuhn/ n., a base or vile fellow.
• defilade: /ˈde-fə-ˌlād/ v., protect (a position, vehicle, or troops) against enemy observation or gunfire.
• flyte: /fləɪt/ v., to scold, to rail at; n., a dispute or scolding.
• meiosis: /mī-ˈō-səs/ n., a type of cell division that results in four daughter cells each with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell, as in the production of gametes and plant spores.
• oneiromancy: /ō-ˈnī-rə-ˌman(t)-sē/ n., the interpretation of dreams in order to foretell the future.
• polysemous: /ˌpä-lē-ˈsē-məs/ adj., having multiple meanings.
• swarf: /ˈswȯrf/ n., material (such as metallic particles and abrasive fragments) removed by a cutting or grinding tool.
• tatterdemelion: /ˌta-tər-di-ˈmāl-yən/ n., a person dressed in ragged clothing; adj., ragged or disreputable in appearance; being in a decayed state or condition.
• Witzelsucht: /ˈvit-səl-ˌzu̇ḵt/ n., GERMAN,  a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make  puns or tell unseemly jokes or narrate pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations; punning mania.

May 10, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
tapinosis
/tap-uh-NO-sis/ n.,  a rhetorical term for a particular type of name-calling: a deliberate, undignified language that debases a person or thing, from the Greek tapeinosis: reduction, lowering, humbling — sometimes described as one particular kind of meiosis — a more general term for understatement.  Tapinosis comes in several common forms: cursing, flyting, invective, pejoration, ranting, and snark.

Interestingly, mindless tapinosis often reduces the status of the users as much as the object of the user’s scorn, but authors can use tapinosis as an effective rhetorical device for writers to mindfully render their characters.

Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 3, scent 2, Lysander addressing Demetrius

Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw.

William Shakespeare's King Lear, Act II, scene 2, Kent addressing Oswald

Hope not for mind in women; at their best
Sweetest and wit, they are but Mummy, possessed.

John Donne, Love's Alchemy

The Curse
By J. M. Synge
To a sister of an enemy of the author's who disapproved of 'The Playboy'

Lord, confound this surly sister,
Blight her brow with blotch and blister,
Cramp her larynx, lung, and liver,
In her guts a galling give her.
Let her live to earn her dinners
In Mountjoy with seedy sinners:
Lord, this judgment quickly bring,
And I'm your servant, J. M. Synge.

Yes, you squashed cabbage-leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, Henry Higgins addressing Eliza Doolittle

To which particular boosing shed?… My casting vote is: Mooney’s!

James Joyce, Ulysses, Lenehan’s response to Stephen, where in the real Dublin, Mooney’s on Lower Abbey Street was considered posh.

And from the preadolescent male, the peerless practitioner of tapinosis:

Phillips: We play on a real diamond, Porter. You ain’t good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats.
Porter: Watch it, jerk!
Phillips: Shut up, idiot!
Porter: Moron!
Phillips: Scab eater!
Porter: Butt sniffer!
Phillips: Pus licker!
Porter: Fart smeller!
Phillips: You eat dog crap for breakfast, geek!
Porter: You mix your Wheaties with your mama’s toe jam!
Phillips: You bob for apples in the toilet and you like it!
Porter: YOU PLAY BALL LIKE A GIRL!

from the movie The Sandlot

From A Year with Rilke, May 10 Entry
Gravity, from Uncollected Poems

Center, how from all things
you gather yourself. Even from those that fly
you take yourself back, Center, strongest one.

Those who stand can feel how gravity
plunges through them, like a drink through thirst.

Yet from the sleeper,
gravity drifts like rain
from unhurried clouds.

The Blue Circus
By Marc Chagall

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.



*He knew that his end was in sight.