Word-Wednesday for September 27, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 27, 2023, the thirty-ninth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of fall, and the two-hundred seventieth day of the year, with ninety-five days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for September 27, 2023
Peaking Peek
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources confirms what we already know, our fall colors are almost at their peak.

Looking up tonight,

Spot the Space Station: 

8:02 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 69°, Appears: 10° above WNW, Disappears: 14° above E

September 27 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


September 27 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 27, 2023
Sunrise: 7:17am; Sunset: 7:13pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 6:49pm; Moonset: 4:33am, waxing gibbous, 92% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for September 27, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High            61                     82                     72
Low             38                     17                     58

The Beautiful Changes
by Richard Wilbur

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   
In such kind ways,   
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

September 27 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Day of Forgiveness
• World Dense Breast Day
• National Scarf Day
• National Corned Beef Hash Day
• National Crush a Can Day
• National Chocolate Milk Day
• National Women’s Health and Fitness Day
• National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
• World Tourism Day

September 27 Word Riddle
What does Cinderella wear on her feet at the pool?*


September 27 Word Pun
Sven vould gave been a monk if he’d ever been given the chants.


September 27 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

     There's a man with a Nose,
     And wherever he goes
The people run from him and shout:
     "No cotton have we
     For our ears if so be
He blow that interminous snout!"

     So the lawyers applied
     For injunction. "Denied,"
Said the Judge: "the defendant prefixion,
     Whate'er it portend,
     Appears to transcend
The bounds of this court's jurisdiction."
                                            Arpad Singiny

September 27 Etymology Word of the Week
autumn
/ˈô-dəm/ n., the third season of the year, when crops and fruits are gathered and leaves fall, in the northern hemisphere from September to November and in the southern hemisphere from March to May, from late 14th century, autumpne (modern form from 16th century), from Old French autumpne, automne (13th century), from Latin autumnus (also auctumnus, perhaps influenced by auctus "increase"), which is of unknown origin.

Perhaps it is from Etruscan, but Tucker suggests a meaning "drying-up season" and a root in auq- (which would suggest the form in -c- was the original) and compares archaic English sere-month "August." De Vaan writes, "Although 'summer', 'winter' and 'spring' are inherited Indo-European words in Latin, a foreign origin of autumnus is conceivable, since we cannot reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European word for 'autumn'".

Harvest (n.) was the English name for the season until autumn began to displace it in the 16th century. Astronomically, from the descending equinox to the winter solstice; in Britain, the season is popularly August through October; in U.S., September through November. Compare Italian autunno, Spanish otoño, Portuguese outono, all from the Latin word.

As de Vaan notes, autumn's names across the Indo-European languages leave no evidence that there ever was a common word for it. Many "autumn" words mean "end, end of summer," or "harvest." Compare Greek phthinoporon "waning of summer;" Lithuanian ruduo "autumn," from rudas "reddish," in reference to leaves; Old Irish fogamar, literally "under-winter."


September 27 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1822 French scholar Jean-François Champollion announces he has deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone.
• 1852 George Aiken's play Uncle Tom's Cabin, an adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous anti-slavery novel, premieres.
• 1905 The physics journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc².
• 1912 W. C. Handy publishes Memphis Blues, considered the first blues song.
• 1916 First Native American Day celebrated, honoring American Indians.
• 1919 Democratic National Committee votes to allow female members.
• 1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.

September 27 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1507 Guillaume Rondelet, French naturalist.
• 1600 John Galle, Flemish engraver and printer.
• 1729 Michael Denis, Austrian poet.
• 1786 José Mariano Elízaga, Mexican composer.
• 1792 George Cruikshank, English caricaturist and illustrator of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
• 1821 Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Swiss writer.
• 1840 Thomas Nast, German-American caricaturist and political cartoonist.
• 1858 Þorsteinn Erlingsson, Icelandic poet.
• 1866 Tryggve Andersen, Norwegian writer.
• 1871 Grazia Deledda, Italian author and Nobel prize winner 1926.
• 1906 William Empson, English poet.
• 1917 Louis Auchincloss, American lawyer novelist.
• 1922 James Wilson, Irish classical composer.
• 1924 Josef Škvorecký, Czech writer.
• 1926 Timothy O'Keeffe, Irish writer.
• 1939 Carol Lynn Pearson, American poet.
• 1945 Kay Ryan, American poet.
• 1945 Misha Dichter, Polish-American concert pianist.
• 1953 Heather Watts, American ballerina.
• 1956 Milan Smrčka, Czech poet.
• 1961 Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer.
• 1970 Jana Boušková, Czech concert harpist.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a story or pram that includes a malaphor from the following words:

• blench: /blen(t)SH/ v., make a sudden flinching movement out of fear or pain; become pale.
• chyron: /ˈkī-rän/ n., an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or movie screen.
• dundrearies: /dən-ˈdrir-ēz/ n., long flowing sideburns.
• emplotment: /im-ˈplot-m(ə)nt/ n., the assembly of a series of historical events into a narrative with a plot.
• fettle: /ˈfe-dl/ v., trim or clean the rough edges of (a metal casting or a piece of pottery) before firing.
• grok: /ˈgräk/ v., to understand profoundly and intuitively.
• irritainment: /ˌɪr-ə-ˈteɪn-m(ə)nt/ n., broadcast material which is irritating yet still entertaining; irritating entertainment.
• lodestar: /ˈlōd-stär/ n., a star that is used to guide the course of a ship, especially the Pole Star.
• plethoric: /plə-ˈTHô-rik/ adj., overfull; turgid; inflated: a plethoric, pompous speech.
• schmerz: /ʃmɛrts/ n., grief, sorrow, pain (frequently as depicted in art, literature, or music).

September 27, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
malaphor
/ˈmalə-fôr/, n., a blend of malapropism and metaphor, or idiom blend, a mixture of two aphorisms, idioms, or clichés, producing an often nonsensical result, coined by Lawrence Harrison in the Washington Post article "Searching for Malaphors”, August 6, 1976. Such twisted and consequentially nonsensical aphorisms are also known as a Dundrearyism after after Lord Dundreary, a foolish aristocrat in Tom Taylor's play Our American Cousin, who utters remarks of this kind. Think of a malaphor as an antiproverb.

Here are a few examples of how malaphor blending works:

You hit the nail right on the nose.
A blending of:
You hit the nail right on the head, and,
That’s right on the nose.
Meaning: You got that right.

She really stuck her neck out on a limb.
A blending of:
Stuck her neck out, and,
went out on a limb.
Meaning: She took a big risk.

We’ll jump that bridge when we get to it.
A blending of:  
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, and,
If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?
Meaning: When we get to that point in time, we’ll take care of it.

We’ll burn that bridge while the gettin’s good.
A blending of:  
Don’t burn your bridges, and,
Get it while the gettin’s good.
Meaning:  We’ll mess this up while we still have a chance.

Please feel free to find your own meanings in the additional malaphor examples, listed by category.

Antiproverbial

A stitch in time gathers no moss.

Build a man a fire and he’s warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life.

Two peas in a pod are worth two in the bush.

A penny saved is worth two in the bush.

That's water under the dam.

It's as easy as falling off a piece of cake.

Moral Advice

If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t throw stones.

Always look both ways before brushing your teeth.

Robbing Peter to pay the Piper.

It's time to swallow the bullet.

Observations of Life

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the fire.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but flattery will get you nowhere.

We’ll sit in our ivory tower while Rome burns.

Hindsight is 50/50.

You can take one man’s trash to another man’s treasure, but you can’t make it drink.

It’s not rocket surgery.

This may be water under the bridge, but blood is thicker than water.

If we can’t grab the bull by the horns, we’ll milk it dry.

It's like looking for a needle in a hayride.

It’s not over until the fat lady kicks the bucket.

There’s plenty of girls in the sea.

We will get there by hook or ladder. . . .

It's time to step up to the plate and lay your cards on the table.

He's burning the midnight oil from both ends.

That's no skin off my teeth.

He's between a rock and the deep blue sea.

Personal Commentary

He’s not the brightest tool in the shed.

He’s not the sharpest egg in the attic.

He’s not the sharpest needle in the haystack.

I can read him like the back of my book.

He sticks out like a sore throat.

That guy's out to butter his own nest.

Animal Malaphors

You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t take the water out of the horse.

The sacred cows have come home to roost with a vengeance.

We could stand here and talk until the cows turn blue.

Let dead dogs sleep.

Don’t put all your chickens in one basket before they’ve hatched.

The squeaky mouse gets the oil.

When the mouse is away, the cheese will play.

A bird in the hand is worth two killed with one stone.

Birds of a feather gather no moss.

You’ve opened this can of worms, now lie in it.

Until the cows freeze over.

And one more by one of the best all time malaphorists, Yogi Berra: 

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

From A Year with Rilke, September 27 Entry
The Books You Love, from Viareggio, April 5, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet

Live for awhile in the books you love. Learn from them what is worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be returned to you a thousand times over. Whatever your life may become, these books—of this I am certain—will weave through the web of your unfolding. They will be among the strongest of all threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys.

The Novel Reader
by  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.



*glass flippers.