Word-Wednesday for August 23, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for August 23, 2023, the thirty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of summer, and the two-hundred thirty-fifth day of the year, with one-hundred thirty days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for August 23, 2023
Honeycomb
Beekeepers (apiarists) typically begin extracting honey in August. Domestication of bees can be seen in Egyptian art from around 4,500 years ago; there is also evidence of beekeeping in ancient China, Greece, and Maya. Nowadays, beekeeping is often used for crop pollination and the production of other products, such as wax and propolis. The largest beekeeping operations are agricultural businesses, but many small beekeeping operations are run as a hobby.

Hummingbirds are starting to head south, but some remain…

The Humming-Bird
Beatrice Ravenel

The sundial makes no sign
At the point of the August noon.
The sky is of ancient tin,
And the ring of the mountains diffused and unmade
(One always remembers them).
On the twisted dark of the hemlock hedge
Rain, like a line of shivering violin-bows
Hissing together, poised on the last turgescent swell,
Batters the flowers.
Under the trumpet-vine arbor,
Clear, precise as an Audubon print,
           The air is of melted glass,
           Solid, filling interstices
Of leaves that are spaced on the spines
           Like a pattern ground into glass;
           Dead, as though dull red glass were poured into the mouth,
Choking the breath, molding itself into the creases of soft red tissues.

And a humming-bird darts head first,
Splitting the air, keen as a spurt of fire shot from the blow-pipe,
Cracking a star of rays; dives like a flash of fire,
Forked tail lancing the air, into the immobile trumpet;
Stands on the air, wings like a triple shadow
Whizzing around him.

Shadows thrown on the midnight streets by a snow-flecked arc-light,
Shadows like sword-play,
Splinters and spines from a thousand dreams
Whizz from his wings!

August 23 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


August 23 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for August 23, 2023
Sunrise: 6:28am; Sunset: 8:26pm; 3 minutes, 21 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 2:19pm; Moonset: 11:01pm, waxing crescent, 45% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for August 23, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             74                     94                    76
Low              51                     33                    60

Last August before the Year 2000
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Spun silk of mercy,
long-limbed afternoon,
sun urging purple blossoms from baked stems.  
What better blessing than to move without hurry  
under trees?
Lugging a bucket to the rose that became a twining  
house by now, roof and walls of vine—
you could live inside this rose.
Pouring a slow stream around the
ancient pineapple crowned with spiky fruit,  
I thought we would feel old
by the year 2000.
Walt Disney thought cars would fly.

What a drama to keep thinking *the last summer  
the last birthday*
before the calendar turns to zeroes.
My neighbor says anything we plant
in September takes hold.
She’s lining pots of little grasses by her walk.

I want to know the root goes deep  
on all that came before,
you could lay a soaker hose across  
your whole life and know
there was something
under layers of packed summer earth  
and dry blown grass
to moisten.

August 23 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Black Ribbon Day
• National Cuban Sandwich Day
• International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition
• National Sponge Cake Day
• National Ride the Wind Day
• Éogan of Ardstraw Day

August 23 Word Riddle
What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards?*


August 23 Word Pun

August 23 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.

Enough is as good as a feast—for that matter
Enougher's as good as a feast for the platter.

                                                                Arbely C. Strunk


August 23 Etymology Word of the Week
enough
/i-ˈnəf/ adj., occurring in such quantity, quality, or scope as to fully meet demands, needs, or expectations, from circa 1300, from Old English genog "sufficient in quantity or number," from Proto-Germanic compound ganog "sufficient" (source also of Old Saxon ginog, Old Frisian enoch, Dutch genoeg, Old High German ginuog, German genug, Old Norse gnogr, Gothic ganohs).

First element is Old English ge- "with, together" (also a participial, collective, intensive, or perfective prefix), making this word the most prominent surviving example of the Old English prefix, the equivalent of Latin com- and Modern German ge- (from Proto-Indo-European kom- "beside, near, by, with;". The second element is from Proto-Indo-European nok-, from root nek- "to reach, attain" (source also of Sanskrit asnoti "to reach," Hittite ninikzi "lifts, raises," Lithuanian nešti "to bear, carry," Latin nancisci "to obtain").

As an adverb, "sufficiently for the purpose," in Old English; meaning "moderately, fairly, tolerably" (good enough) was in Middle English. Understated sense, as in have had enough "have had too much" was in Old English (which relied heavily on double negatives and understatement). As a noun in Old English, "a quantity or number sufficient for the purpose." As an interjection, "that is enough," from circa 1600. Colloquial 'nough said, implying the end of discussion, is attested from 1839, American English, representing a casual or colloquial pronunciation.


August 23 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1617 First one-way streets open (in London).
• 1850 First USofA National Women's Rights Convention convenes in Worcester, Massachusetts.
• 1919 Gasoline Alley cartoon strip premieres in Chicago Tribune.
• 1946 The Big Sleep premieres.
• 2007 Hashtag invented and first used in a tweet.

August 23 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1593 Fulvio Testi, Italian poet.
• 1846 Alexander Milne Calder, Scottish-American sculptor.
• 1849 William Ernest Henley, British poet.
• 1851 Alois Jirásek, Czech writer.
• 1867 Marcel Schwob, French writer.
• 1869 Edgar Lee Masters, American poet and novelist.
• 1887  Francis Ledwidge, Irish poet.
• 1889 Alfred Lichtenstein, German writer.
• 1908 Hannah Frank, Scottish artist and sculptor.
• 1908 Anna Zemánková, Czech painter.
• 1912 Gene Kelly, American dancer.
• 1913 Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera, Venezuelan musician.
• 1922 Pierre Gauvreau, Canadian painter.
• 1924 Edvard Fliflet Braein, Norwegian composer.

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

• alembication: /uh-lem-buh-KAY-shuhn/ n., the action or an act of refining something or making something purer or more perfect; distillation; the result of this; the purest or most refined product of; the quintessence.
• crotchet: /ˈkrä-chət/ n., a perverse or unfounded belief or notion; a highly individual and usually eccentric opinion or preference; a note having the time value of a quarter of a whole note or half a half note, represented by a large solid dot with a plain stem; a quarter note; a small hook or hooked instrument, a brooch.
• faille: /ˈfī(-ə)l/ n., a somewhat shiny closely woven silk, rayon, or cotton fabric characterized by slight ribs in the weft.
• inanition: /ˌi-nə-ˈni-shən/ n., the quality or state of being empty; the exhausted condition that results from lack of food and water; the absence or loss of social, moral, or intellectual vitality or vigor.
• maizel: /ˈmeɪ-zəl/ v. intr., to become dazed or bewildered; to wander, esp. confusedly.
• parergon: /paˈrərˌgän/ n., something subordinate or accessory; a subordinate activity or work.
• Qlipoth: /qəlīp-pō/ n., the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the polar opposites of the holy Sefirot.
• sybarite: /ˈsi-bə-ˌrīt/ n., a person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for sensuous luxury.
• tomhan: /TAH-muhn/ n., a small hill, hillock, or knoll; (chiefly) a mound of a type formed by glacial moraines, typically found at the heads of valleys in the Scottish Highlands; esp. such a feature identified in folklore as a dwelling place of fairies; a fairy mound.
• wait: /ˈwāt/ n., one of a band of public musicians in England employed to play for processions or public entertainments.

August 23, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
antigram
/AN-tuh-gram/ n., an anagram that has an opposite or contradictory meaning to the original word or phrase. The word antigram is a portmanteau of the words,

antonym: /ˈan-tə-ˌnim/ n., a word of opposite meaning, and
anagram: /ˈa-nə-ˌgram/ n., a word or phrase made by transposing the letters of another word or phrase.

Antigrams come as single words or as phrases. First, antigrams from single words:

antagonist/not against
a libeler/reliable
abominable/bon, amiable
admit/dam it
adultery/true lady
adversaries/are advisers
ailed/ideal
anarchists/arch saints
antagonist/not against

boasting/it's no gab
butchers/cut herbs

commendation/aim to condemn
customers/store scum

defiant/fainted
demoniacal/a docile man
diplomacy/mad policy
disallow/do as will
dormitories/tidier rooms

earliest/arises late
epitaphs/happiest
evangelist/evil’s agent

fakir/kafir
festival/evil fast
filled/ill-fed
firm/Mr. If
fluster/restful
forbid/bid for
forgo/go for
funeral/real fun

harmfulness/harmless fun
hesitant/hasten it
honestly/on the sly
honorees/no heroes

imperfections/of precise mint
indeed/denied
indiscriminate/discern aim in it
infection/fine tonic
inferno/non-fire
inflated/I end flat
innermost/I nest on rim

maidenly/men? Daily
medicate/decimate
melodramatic/a more mild act
militarism/I limit arms
misfortune/it's more fun

persecuted/due respect
protectionism/nice to imports

reforestation/no fair to trees
restful/fluster
Roosevelt/vote loser
ruthless/hurtless

sainted/stained
saintliness/entails sins
Santa/Satan
sheared/adheres

teacher/cheater
tip/pit

united/untied

violence/nice love
wellbeing/we'll binge

Aaannnd, some phrase antigrams:

a volunteer fireman/I never run to a flame

gets a lot/got least

I am flustered/I, made restful

is fertile/if sterile

Jack Pine Savage/a jive cage spank

Sven and Ula art line /navel lint ear nudes

the winter gales/sweltering heat

Thomas A. Edison/Tom has no ideas

voting honestly/voting on the sly

within earshot/I won't hear this

Antigrams are for sit-ups for writers and other word lovers. Give it a try.


From A Year with Rilke, August 23 Entry
The Blooming of One Flower, from the Eighth Duino Elegy

Never, not for a single day, do we let
the space before us be so unbounded
that the blooming of one flower is forever.

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 receding hare line