Word-Wednesday for August 30, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for August 30, 2023, the thirty-fifth Wednesday of the year, the eleventh Wednesday of summer, and the two-hundred forty-second day of the year, with one-hundred twenty-three days remaining. Brought to you by Minnesota BeadGypsy, on the second-to-the-last day of the 20 percent off August necklace sale.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for August 30, 2023
Harvesting Reds
Late August bears many red fruits. One of our personal favorites here at Word-Wednesday is the cherry tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, cerasiforme variety, a type of small round tomato believed to be an intermediate genetic admixture between wild currant-type tomatoes and domesticated garden tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from the tip of your thumb to the size of a golf ball, with a shape ranging from spherical to slightly oblong. Most often red, you can find other colors such as orange, yellow, green, purple, and black. The cherry tomato is regarded as a botanical variety of the cultivated berry.

Apples are ready, too.

 

Tonight's the night of the closest full moon of 2023 - a supermoon - and also a Blue Moon.

Spot the International Space Station:

Time: Wed Aug 30 4:47 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 75°, Appears: 46° above W, Disappears: 10° above ENE 

 

August 30 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


August 30 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for August 30, 2023
Sunrise: 6:38am; Sunset: 8:12pm; 3 minutes, 26 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:28pm; Moonset: 5:37am, super Full Moon, Blue Moon, 98% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for August 30, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High            72                     95                     79
Low             49                     29                     62

Toward the End of August
by David Budbill

Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come.

August 30 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Toasted Marshmallow Day
• International Whale Shark Day
• National Beach Day
• National Grief Awareness Day
• International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance
• Feast Day of Fiacre

August 30 Word Riddle
How do you know when a chicken is evil?*


August 30 Word Pun
Sven told Monique she drew on her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised.


August 30 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.

Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well—
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.

                                                                            Barney Stims


August 30 Etymology Word of the Week
blond
/bländ/, adj., (of hair) fair or pale yellow; n., a person with fair or pale yellow hair (typically used of a woman), from late 15th century, from Old French blont "fair, blond" (12th century), from the same source as Medieval Latin blundus "yellow," but of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Frankish blund or another Germanic source (compare Dutch, German, Danish blond).

If it is a Germanic word, it is possibly related to Old English blonden-feax "gray-haired," from blondan, blandan "to mix" (see blend (v.)). According to Littré, the original sense of the French word was "a colour midway between golden and light chestnut," which might account for the notion of "mixed." [But Century Dictionary finds this "hardly probable."]

Old English beblonden meant "dyed," so it is also possible that the root meaning of blonde, if it is Germanic, may be "dyed," as ancient Teutonic warriors were noted for dying their hair. Du Cange, however, writes that blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flavus "yellow." Another guess (discounted by German etymologists), is that it represents a Vulgar Latin albundus, from alba "white."

The word was reintroduced into English 17th century from French, and was until recently still felt as French, hence blonde (with French feminine ending) for females. Italian biondo, Spanish blondo, Old Provençal blon are said to be ultimately of Germanic origin.


August 30 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1146 European leaders outlaw the crossbow, intending to end war for all time.
• 1574 Ram Das becomes the fourth Sikh Guru.
• 1751 George Frideric Handel completes oratorio Jephtha.
• 1791 Thomas Jefferson responds to Benjamin Banneker's letter on the issue of slavery.
• 1885 Thirteen thousand meteors seen in one hour near Andromeda.
• 1918 Czechoslovakia forms independent republic.
• 1961 James Benton Parsons is confirmed as first African American judge of a US District Court.
• 1967 US Senate confirm Thurgood Marshall as first black justice.
• 2007 NASA spacecraft Voyager 2 crosses the termination shock, where solar and interstellar winds met.
• 2017 Late author Terry Pratchett's unfinished works destroyed by steamroller as per his instructions.

August 30 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1609 Artus Quellinus, Flemish sculptor.
• 1797 Mary Shelley, English novelist, author of Frankenstein.
• 1885 Otakar Sedloň, Czech painter.
• 1902 Arnold Maria Walter, Canadian composer.
• 1910 Donald Bisset, British children's book writer, illustrator.
• 1915 Liesbeth Saijers, Dutch sculptor.
• 1919 Jiří Orten, Czech poet.
• 1920 Ben Cami, Flemish writer and poet.
• 1923 Charmian Clift, Australian writer and essayist.
• 1925 Laurent de Brunhoff, French writer and illustrator, author of Babar the Elephant.
• 1926 Oļģerts Grāvītis, Latvian-Soviet composer,.
• 1930 Warren Burger, American author.
• 1936 Fabrizia Ramondino, Italian author.
• 1943 Robert Crumb, American cartoonist.
• 1951 Dana Rosemary Scallon, Irish singer.
• 1973 Amy Sherald, American painter.

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

• brassage: /ˈbra-sij/ n., the difference in value in minting a coin and its value.
• cuvée: /kü-ˈvā/ n., bulk wine.
• darbies: /ˈdärbēz/ n., handcuffs.
• epithalamium: /ˌep-ə-THə-ˈlā-mē-əm/ n., a song or poem celebrating a marriage.
• garçonniere: /gär-sᵊn-'ye(ə)r/ n., a bachelor apartment.
• lunker: /ˈləNG-kər/ n., an exceptionally large specimen of something, in particular (among anglers) a fish.
• murgeon: /MUR-juhn/ n., originally: dirt, refuse, dregs; later: wet peaty soil; mortar or cement from old walls, esp. used as manure.
• muset: /MYOO-zuht/ n., a gap in a hedge or fence through which hares, rabbits, or other animals may pass; (also) the lair or form of a hare.
• palter: /ˈpȯl-tər/ v., equivocate or prevaricate in action or speech.
• soucouyant: /soo-koo-YO(NG)/ n., in Caribbean folklore: a person, typically an old woman, believed to shed his or her skin at night and travel in the form of a ball of fire, and to suck the blood of victims while they sleep.

August 30, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
satire
/ˈsa-tī(ə)r/ n., the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues, from circa 1500, "a literary work (originally in verse) intended to ridicule prevailing vice or folly by scornful or contemptuous expression," from French satire (14th century) and directly from Latin satira "satire; poetic medley," earlier satura, in lanx satura "mixed dish, dish filled with various kinds of fruit," literally "full dish," from fem. of satur "sated" (from Proto-Indo-European root sa- "to satisfy").

The word acquired its literary sense, in Latin, in reference to a collection of poems in various meters on a variety of subjects by the late republican poet Ennius. The little that survives of his verse does not now seem particularly satiric, but in classical Latin the word was used especially of a poem which assailed various vices one after another. The form was altered in Latin by influence of Greek satyr, on the mistaken notion that the literary form is related to the Greek satyr drama (see satyr). Also see humor (n.).

In modern general use, "a denouncing or deriding speech or writing full of sarcasm, ridicule, irony, etc." (all of which can express satire). The broader meaning "fact or circumstance that makes someone or something look ridiculous" is by 1690s.

Whether delivered by books, cartoons, drawings, essays, illustrations, movies, newspapers, pamphlets, plays, poetry, prams, skits, songs, or squibs; whether as buffoonery, burlesque, caricature, irony, lampoonery, mockery, or parody; the purpose of satire is perhaps best encapsulated by a regular feature here at Word-Wednesday: the people that bring us the Ig Nobel Prizes each year: “To first make people laugh, and then make them think.”

The Greeks take credit for the first forms of literary satire (at least in the West), developed further by the Romans, and blossoming since the Enlightenment era of Voltaire. Here’s a survey of words about satire from some able practitioners:


Satire is a sort of glass [mirror] wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.

Jonathan Swift

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

G. K. Chesterton

Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

Philip Roth

Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

Vladimir Nabokov

Satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.

Barbara W. Tuchman

Satire is tragedy plus time.

Lenny Bruce

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it’s vulgar.

Molly Ivins

Satire is by its nature offensive. So is much art and political discourse. The value of these expressions far outweighs their risk.

Erica Jong

Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.

Marguerite Gardiner

Satire’s nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

E. L. Doctorow

Satire picks a one-sided fight, and the more its intended target reacts, the more the practitioner gains the advantage.

Garry Trudeau

A satirist is a man whose flesh creeps so at the ugly and the savage and the incongruous aspects of society that he has to express them as brutally and nakedly as possible to get relief.

John Dos Passos

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little—or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

Anthony Trollope

A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit’s conjecture is to endanger the species.

Penelope Gilliatt

The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

Salman Rushdie

Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.

Anita Brookner

Satire should,
Like a polish'd razor keen,
Wound with a touch,
That's scarcely felt or seen.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Satire is supposed to be unbalanced. It's supposed to be unfair. Criticizing a political satirist for being unfair is like criticizing a 260-pound nose guard for being physical.

Garry Trudeau

Satire that the censor understands is rightly censored.

Karl Kraus

Prepare for rhyme—I’ll publish right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let Satire be my song.

Lord Byron

The difference between satire and humor is that the satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive—often to release him again for another chance.

Peter De Vries

Kennedy didn't beat Nixon. Satire beat Nixon.

Chris Rock

There is parody, when you make fun of people who are smarter than you; satire, when you make fun of people who are richer than you; and burlesque, when you make fun of both while taking your clothes off.

P. J. O’Rourke

How important are free speech and satire? Important enough that people will murder others to silence the kind of speech they don’t like.

Neil Gaiman

From A Year with Rilke, August 30 Entry
Not Poor, from Book of Hours III, 16

We are not poor. We are just without riches,
we who have no will, no world:
marked with the marks of the latest anxiety,
disfigured, stripped of leaves.

Around us swirls the dust of the cities,
the garbage clings to us.
We are shunned as if contaminated,
thrown away like broken pots, like bones,
like last year's calendar.

And yet if our Earth needed to
she could weave us together like roses
and make of us a garland.

For each being is cleaner than washed stones
and endlessly yours, and like an animal
who knows already in its first blind moments
its need for one thing only—

to let ourselves be poor like that—as we truly are.

Le Branche
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.



*when it lays deviled eggs.