Word-Wednesday for October 25, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 25, 2023, the forty-third Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of fall, and the two-hundred ninety-eighth day of the year, with sixty-seven days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for October 25, 2023
Tamaracks Peak
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says that Wannaska has past its peak color point for this season, where most of the colorful leaves now lay browning and moldering on the ground. But not so, the tamarack, otherwise know as the larch.

Looking up to the northeast on clear nights:

If you're up early enough, spot the space station: Oct 25 5:38 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 42°, Appears: 42° above ESE, Disappears: 10° above ENE.

October 25 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


October 25 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for October 25, 2023
Sunrise: 7:58am; Sunset: 6:15pm; 3 minutes, 21 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 5:10pm; Moonset: 3:33am, waxing gibbous, 82% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for October 25, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             45                     77                     44
Low              27                    -12                    33

Crows
by Ursula K. Le Guin

Crows are the color of anarchy
and close up they’re a little scary.
An eye as bright as anything.
Having a pet crow would be
like having Voltaire on a string.

October 25 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Merri Music Day
• National Greasy Food Day
• Sourest Day
• International Artist’s Day
• Nevada Day
• October Day in Ireland
• National Bat Week
  

October 25 Word Riddle
What do you call a cow who doesn’t produce milk?*


October 25 Word Pun
Sven goes to Dr. Bob’s office and asks the doctor to inspect his leg. Sven says, "Here, put your ear to my knee." Dr. Bob puts his ear to Sven’s knee and hears very faintly, "Come on, can I have five bucks, just five bucks?"

Dr. Bob steps back in horror, and Sven says, "I know, but it gets vorse. Put your ear to my shin." Dr. Bob puts his ear to Sven’s shin and hears very faintly, "Come on, can I have ten bucks, just ten bucks?"

Once again, Dr. Bob stands up, very perplexed. Sven then says, "If that surprises you, put your ear to my ankle." Dr. Bob puts his ear to Sven’s ankle and hears oh so faintly, "Come on, can I have twenty bucks, just twenty bucks?"

Dr. Bob then stands up and says, "Well, I can make just one conclusion. Your leg is broke in three places."


October 25 The Devil’s Dictionary Halloween Word-Pram
BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. The hyena.

"One night," a doctor said, "last fall,
I and my comrades, four in all,
     When visiting a graveyard stood
Within the shadow of a wall.

"While waiting for the moon to sink
We saw a wild hyena slink
     About a new-made grave, and then
Begin to excavate its brink!

"Shocked by the horrid act, we made
A sally from our ambuscade,
     And, falling on the unholy beast,
Dispatched him with a pick and spade."
                                        Bettel K. Jhones

October 25 Etymology Word of the Week
apocalypse
/ə-ˈpäk-ə-lips/ n., the complete final destruction of the world, as described in the biblical book of Revelation; an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale, from late 14th century, "revelation, disclosure," from Church Latin apocalypsis "revelation," from Greek apokalyptein "uncover, disclose, reveal," from apo "off, away from" + kalyptein "to cover, conceal" (from Proto-Indo-European root kel- "to cover, conceal, save"). The Christian end-of-the-world story is part of the revelation in John of Patmos' book Apokalypsis (a title rendered into English as pocalipsis circa 1050, Apocalypse circa 1230, and Revelation by Wycliffe circa 1380).

Its general sense in Middle English was "insight, vision; hallucination." The general meaning "a cataclysmic event" is modern (not in Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed., 1989); apocalypticism "belief in an imminent end of the present world" is from 1858. As agent nouns, "author or interpreter of the Apocalypse," apocalypst (1829), apocalypt (1834), and apocalyptist (1824) have been tried.


October 25 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1521 Emperor Charles V bans wooden buildings in Amsterdam.
• 1671 Giovanni Cassini discovers Iapetus, satellite of Saturn.
• 1780 John Hancock becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
• 1861 Telegraph message sent from St Louis to San Francisco. .---- ---.. -.... .---- / - . .-.. . --. .-. .- .--. .... / -- . ... ... .- --. . / ... . -. - / ..-. .-. --- -- / ... - / .-.. --- ..- .. ... / - --- / ... .- -. / ..-. .-. .- -. -.-. .. ... -.-. --- .-.-.-
• 1870 Postcards first used in U.S.of A.
• 1875 The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
• 1885 Johannes Brahms conducts the premiere of his 4th Symphony in e, Opus 98.
• 1902 Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths premieres.
• 1962 American author John Steinbeck awarded Nobel Prize for Literature.

October 25 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1716 Petronio Maria Pio Sgabazzi, Italian composer.
• 1735 James Beattie, Scottish poet.
• 1800 Thomas Babington Macaulay, English poet.
• 1802 Joseph Montferrand, French Canadian logger who visited Kansas.
• 1803 Maria van Ackere-Doolaeghe, Flemish poet.
• 1828 John Cashel Hoey, Irish writer.
• 1838 Georges Bizet, French composer.
• 1843 Gleb Uspensky, Russian author.
• 1859 Hélène Swarth, Dutch author.
• 1878 Nico van Suchtelen, Dutch writer.
• 1881 Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter.
• 1884 Eduardo Barrios, Chilean novelist.
• 1887 Emma "Grandma" Gatewood, American ultra-light hiking pioneer and first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail alone.
• 1908 Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer.
• 1914 John Berryman, American poet.
• 1929 Peter Rohmkorf, German writer.
• 1935 Zdeněk Pololáník, Czech composer.
• 1941 Anne Tyler, American writer.
• 1943 Selly Fernandes, Curacao poetess.
• 1975 Zadie Smith, British novelist.

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

• avenaceous: /ˌæv-ə-ˈnei-ʃəs/ adj., of or like oats.
• bomullock: /BUH-muh-luhk/ n., a grisly ghost (known for bushy and menacing eyebrows).
• corposant: /ˈkôrpəsənt/ n., an appearance of St. Elmo's fire on a mast, rigging, or other structure.
• dunnamany: /ˈdən-ə-mɛn-i/ n., an unknown quantity or amount.
• gruta: /'ɡɾu-ta/ n., grotto, cave; a large natural hollow in rock or in the earth.
• lemma: /ˈle-mə/ n., a heading indicating the subject or argument of a literary composition, an annotation, or a dictionary entry.
• postremogeniture: /po-stree-moh-JEN-i-cher/ n., a system of inheritance under which the estate of a deceased person goes to his youngest son.
• resipiscence: /ress-uh-PISS-uhns/ n., repentance for misconduct; recognition of one's past misdeeds or errors; the action or fact of coming to one's senses, or of returning to a more acceptable opinion.
• skep: /skep/ n., a straw or wicker beehive.
• zugunruhe: /ˈtsuk-ʊnʁu-ə/ n., GERMAN, the seasonal migration of birds and other animals; wanderlust to go somewhere far away to a place one thinks one needs to be.

Smitten by as sudden onset of Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week fever, WannaskaWriter recently submitted the following:

Kimonsat
Squibsonsun
Jporteaonmon
Hotcocoontues
Woeonweds
WWonthurs
Cjonfri

Kimon sat down with Catholic Faith Network
to discuss this and other revolutionary procedures.

Squibbons Squib Sensor

Jporteaonmon: the action or result of apportioning something.

Hot Cocoa

Wegmans opens its Manhattan store on Wednesday

Wonders

Cenfri is one of Africa’s leading economic impact agencies.

October 25, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
Wellerisms
/WEL-uh-riz-uhm/ n., an expression or form of speech used by Sam Weller, a good-natured servant in Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, who was fond of following well-known sayings or phrases with humorous or punning conclusions. Merely defined, previously, today Word-Wednesday takes a closer look at this form of humorous writing.

Wellerisms make fun of established clichés and proverbs by showing that they are wrong in certain situations, especially when taken literally. So, like the malaphor, the Wellerism can be a type of antiproverb. Peculiar to the Wellerism are the three constituent parts: a proverb or saying, a speaker, and a humorously literal explanation. Here are some examples from the dialect-heavy Pickwick Papers:

• "Then the next question is, what the devil do you want with me", as the man said, wen he see the ghost?
• "Out vith it", as the father said to his child, when he swallowed a farden.
• "Wery glad to see you, indeed, and hope our acquaintance may be a long 'un", as the gen'l'm'n said to the fi' pun' note.
• "All good feelin', sir – the wery best intentions", as the gen'l'm'n said ven he run away from his wife 'cos she seemed unhappy with him.
• "There; now we look compact and comfortable", as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him o' squintin'.
• Vich I call addin' insult to injury", as the parrot said ven they not only took him from his native land, but made him talk the English langwidge arterwards.
• "Sorry to do anyfin' as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin's", as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament.
• "Avay vith melincholly", as the little boy said ven his schoolmissus died.
• "Oh, quite enough to get, Sir", as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes.

Other examples include, this from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: 

"A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged", as the Irishman said.

And from Dorothy L Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellonna Club, 

"Au contraire", as the man said in the Bay of Biscay when asked if he had dined.

Interestingly, African languages appear to be almost as fond of their Wellerisms as they are of their proverbs, such as the Sumerian: 

The fox, having urinated into the sea, said: "The depths of the sea are my urine!"

And closer to home:

• "Better never than late", as Sven said to his proctologist.
• "Paste makes vaste", said Inga as she superglued her fingers to her knitting needles.
• "Still vaters run deep", said Sven as his waders sank in the muck of Mikinaak Crick.
• “Every one to his own taste,” said Festus Marvinson as he kissed the cow.

From A Year with Rilke, October 25 Entry
The Moon, from Uncollected Prams

The way that body, the moon, sublime, purposeful,
suddenly steps out over the peak,
bringing the night to serene completion.
Just so my voice rises purely
over the mountains of No More.
And the astonished places you inhabited and left
ache more clearly for you.

Bouquet with Full Moon
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.





*either a milk dud or an udder failure.