Word-Wednesday for January 10, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 10, 2024, the second Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of winter, and the tenth day of the year, with three-hundred fifty-six days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 10, 2024
Grosbeaks at the Feeders
/ˈɡroʊsbiːk/ is a form taxon containing various species of seed-eating passerine birds with large beaks  belonging to the superfamily Passeroidea, not part of a natural group but rather a polyphyletic assemblage of distantly related songbirds. The word "grosbeak", first applied in the late 1670s, is a partial translation of the French grosbec, where gros means "large" and bec means "beak”. Wannaskan grosbeaks come in a variety of colors, and they are now gracing our bird feeders.

January 10 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


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


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 10, 2023
Sunrise: 8:15am; Sunset: 4:47pm; 1 minutes, 45 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:10am; Moonset: 3:25pm, waning crescent, 1% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 10, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             13                     45                      5
Low             -8                    -45                      8

January
by William Carlos Williams

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
                                  Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
                                  And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

January 10 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Houseplant Appreciation Day
• National Oysters Rockefeller Day
• Save the Eagles Day
• National Cut Your Energy Costs Day
• National Bittersweet Chocolate Day

January 10 Word Riddle

The poor have me,
The rich need me,
Eat me and you die,
What am I?*

January 10 Word Pun
After ten days, Sven is still sticking with his New Year’s resolution to not bite his nails for entire month of January. Monique says his feet have never looked better.


January 10 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.

    Ere babes were invented
    The girls were contented.
    Now man is tormented
    Until to buy babes he has squandered
    His money. And so I have pondered
    This thing, and thought maybe
    'Twere better that Baby
    The First had been eagled or condored.
                                            —Ro Amil


January 10 Etymology Word of the Week
January
/ˈjan-yə-wer-ē/ n., the first month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the second month of winter, from late 13th century, Ieneuer (early 12th century in Anglo-French), from Old North French Genever, Old French Jenvier (Modern French Janvier), from Latin Ianuarius (mensis) "(the month) of Janus" (q.v.), to whom the month was sacred as the beginning of the year according to later Roman reckoning (cognates: Italian Gennaio, Provençal Genovier, Spanish Enero, Portuguese Janeiro). The form was gradually Latinized by circa 1400. Replaced Old English geola se æfterra "Later Yule." In Chaucer, a type-name for an old man.


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

• 1776 Common Sense pamphlet by Thomas Paine published.
• 1833 Felix Mendelssohn's cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht premieres.
• 1845 Poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning begin corresponding.
• 1853 Charles Reade's play Gold premieres.
• 1878 US Senate proposes female suffrage.
• 1897 Henrik Ibsen's play John Gabriel Borkman premieres.
• 1917 Suffragettes first protest outside The White House.
• 1928 George Gershwin, Sigmund Romberg and P. G. Wodehouse's musical Rosalie premieres.
• 1929 Elmer Rice's play Street Scene premieres.
• 1953 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Archibald MacLeish.
• 1954 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to W H Auden.
• 1960 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Delmore Schwartz.
• 1965 Bollingen Prize for Poetry awarded to Horace Gregory.
• 1971 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Richard Wilbur.
• 2022 The US Mint issues quarter coins commemorating poet Maya Angelou.

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

• 1797 Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German writer & composer.
• 1814 Aubrey de Vere, Irish poet.
• 1871 Enrica Freiin von Handel-Manzetti, Austrian poet.
• 1883 Aleksei Tolstoi, Russian poet.
• 1887 Robinson Jeffers, American poet & playwright.
• 1909 Rudolf Kubin, Czech cellist.
• 1910 Alioune Diop, Senegalese writer.
• 1922 Ester Mägi, Estonian composer.
• 1928 Philip Levine, American poet.
• 1928 Wallace Berry, American-Canadian composer.
• 1931 Peter Barnes, English writer.
• 1939 Jared Carter, American poet.
• 1939 William Levy, American writer.

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

• alethiology: /uh-lee-thee-AH-luh-jee/ n., the study of truth; that part of logic or philosophy which deals with the nature of truth.
• bobol: /BAH-bahl/ n., fraudulent activity; esp. misappropriation or embezzlement of public funds. Also: an instance of this; a swindle, a scam.
• caducity: /kə-ˈdo͞o-sə-dē/ n., the infirmity of old age; senility.
• dépaysé: /dā-pā-zā/ adj., removed from one's habitual surroundings.
• espiègle: /EHS-pee-AY-gluh/ adj., frolicsome & mischievous; waggish, impish, rascally.
• flyndrig: /‘flin-drig/ n., an impudent or deceiving woman.
• gorgayse: /GOHR-gaez/ adj., elegant, fashionable; tastefully dressed.
• lapidary: /ˈlap-ə-der-ē/ adj., relating to stone and gems and the work involved in engraving, cutting, or polishing; n., a person who cuts, polishes, or engraves gems.
• poncif: /pahn-SEEFF/ n., conventional or hackneyed art, ideas, etc.; cliché, stereotype; an instance of this.
• taxon: /ˈtak-sän/ n., a taxonomic group of any rank, such as a species, family, or class.

January 10, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
THE COMPAYNYS OF FOWLYS
Collective nouns, often referred to as "company terms" are among the most entertaining of words, and today Word-Wednesday explores an interesting etymological source for many collective nouns for birds. Sometime in the mid-1400s, a woman named Juliana Barnes experienced an unknown event that lead her to choose a cloistered life in the Monastery of St. Mery de Pré at Saint Albans Cathedral in a then-Norman Hertfordshire. A prolific diarist, Sr. Juliana eventually began writing for the public. Sr. Juliana often wrote about such masculine subjects as hunting, fishing, and hawking — a woman who might appeal to the average Wannaskan man. In one of the first books printed after the invention of the Gutenberg Press, her writing was (anonymously) published in 1486: Boke of Seynt Albans, aka The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms.

Nested in the middle of her boke, Sr. Juliana placed a long list of her collective nouns under the heading, THE COMPAYNYS OF BEESTYS AND FOWLYS. For the benefit of those readers unfamiliar reading Old English in Bastarda Blackletter Script, Word-Wednesday presents a version of her fowly collective nouns translated to current English usage in Times New Roman.

colony of penguins
congregation of plover
deceit of lapwings
exaltation of larks
fall of woodcock
gaggle of gees
murder of crows
murmuration of starlings
parliament of owls (subsequently becoming, stare of owls)
party of jays
pitying of turtledoves
rafter of turkeys
sedge of herons (subsequently becoming, siege of herons)
siege of bitterns
unkindness of ravens
walk of snipe
watch of nightingales
wedge of swans

For sharing with younger readers, check out the wonderfully illustrated Birds by Brian Wildsmith.


From A Year with Rilke, January 10 Entry
Overflow, from Book of Hours II, 10

Thus the overflow from things
pours into you.
Just as a fountain's higher basins
spill down like strands of loosened hair
into the lowest vessel,
so streams the fullness into you,
when things and thoughts cannot contain it.

Unloading a Train Car
by Leonid Pasternak

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.





*Nothing.