Word-Wednesday for January 17, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 17, 2024, the third Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of winter, and the seventeenth day of the year, with three-hundred forty-nine days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 17, 2024
Adaptive Minnesotans
A small percentage of Minnesota’s American robins, Turdus migratorius, don’t migrate south. Known as super-adapters, these hardy members of the thrush family spend the winter in low swampy areas and valleys to escape the worst of the cold winds. Hundreds also spend winter among ornamental plantings, especially crabapple trees in residential areas around Minnesota, feeding on wild fruit, spider eggs, and other animal matter. Some even spend the cold season along the North Shore, though the Word-Wednesday staff hasn't seen any hanging around feeders in Wannaska.

Our peeper frog friends and other amphibians overwinter under water or under leaf litter in the forest floor—where they freeze solid.

January 17 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 17 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 17, 2023
Sunrise: 8:11am; Sunset: 4:46pm; 2 minutes, 15 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 11:17am; Moonset: 11:58pm, waxing crescent, 37% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 17, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             13                     37                      3
Low             -9                    -44                    -8

Roseau, Dominica: High 83; Low 75.
Greenbush Bay, Auckland, New Zealand: High 72; Low 66
Badger, Newfoundland, Canada: High 36; Low 16

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

January 17 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Classy Day
• National Bootlegger’s Day
• National Hot Buttered Rum Day
• The opening ceremony of Patras Carnival

January 17 Word Riddle
Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?*


January 17 Word Pun

January 17 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
JESTER, n., An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.

    The widow-queen of Portugal
    Had an audacious jester
    Who entered the confessional
    Disguised, and there confessed her.

    "Father," she said, "thine ear bend down—
    My sins are more than scarlet:
    I love my fool—blaspheming clown,
    And common, base-born varlet."

    "Daughter," the mimic priest replied,
    "That sin, indeed, is awful:
    The church's pardon is denied
    To love that is unlawful.

    "But since thy stubborn heart will be
    For him forever pleading,
    Thou'dst better make him, by decree,
    A man of birth and breeding."

    She made the fool a duke, in hope
    With Heaven's taboo to palter;
    Then told a priest, who told the Pope,
    Who damned her from the altar!
    —Barel Dort


January 17 Etymology Word of the Week
snow
/snō/ n., atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer, from Middle English snou, from Old English snaw "snow, that which falls as snow; a fall of snow; a snowstorm," from Proto-Germanic snaiwaz (source also of Old Saxon and Old High German sneo, Old Frisian and Middle Low German sne, Middle Dutch snee, Dutch sneeuw, German Schnee, Old Norse snjor, Gothic snaiws "snow"), from Proto-Indo-European root sniegwh- "snow; to snow" (source also of Greek nipha, Latin nix (genitive nivis), Old Irish snechta, Irish sneachd, Welsh nyf, Lithuanian sniegas, Old Prussian snaygis, Old Church Slavonic snegu, Russian snieg', Slovak sneh "snow"). The cognate in Sanskrit, snihyati, came to mean "he gets wet." As slang for "cocaine" it is attested from 1914.


January 17 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1775 Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The Rivals premieres.
• 1904 Anton Chekhov's play Cherry Orchard opens.
• 1911 Percy Mackaye's Scarecrow premieres.
• 1914 Gerhart Hauptmann's play Der Bogen des Odysseus premieres.
• 1923 Origin of Brown lunation numbers.
• 1929 Popeye makes first appearance, in comic strip.

January 17 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1600 Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish dramatist, poet and writer.
• 1657 Pieter van Bloemen [Standaart], Flemish landscape painter.
• 1706, Benjamin Franklin.
• 1720 Jean-Joseph Vadé, French songwriter, poet, and playwright.
• 1759 Paul Cuffe, African American civil rights activist.
• 1771 Charles Brockden Brown, "Father of American novel", American pioneering writer and editor.
• 1814 Ellen Wood, English author.
• 1820 Anne Brontë, English novelist/poet.
• 1829 Catherine Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.
• 1837 T. C. Murray, Irish dramatist.
• 1858 Tomas Carrasquilla, Colombian author.
• 1876 Olga Fastrová, Czech writer.
• 1885 Emmy Hennings-Ball [Emma Cordsen], German poet.
• 1886 Ronald Firbank, British novelist.
• 1899 Roel Houwink, Dutch writer and poet.
• 1903 Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, Assamese poet.
• 1908 Junior Crehan, Irish fiddler.
• 1917 Oskar Morawetz, Czech-Canadian composer.
• 1925 Robert Cormier, American author.
• 1935 Paul O[sborne] Williams, American science fiction author.
• 1938 John Bellairs, American science fiction author.
• 1940 Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali, South African poet.
• 1940 Richard Maloof , American bassist.
• 1945 Ivan Karabits, Ukrainian composer.
• 1945 Javed Akhtar, Indian lyricist, poet and scriptwriter.
• 1957 Ann Nocenti, American comic book writer.
• 1968 Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Dutch writer.
• 1974 Annemarie Jacir, Palestinian filmmaker and poet.
• 1976 Aga Zaryan [Agnieszka Skrzypek], Polish jazz singer.
• 1980 Gareth McLearnon, Irish flautist.

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

• beatinest: /ˈbē-tᵊn-əst/ adj., surpassing all others; most unusual or surprising.
• cacoepy: /kuh-KOH-uh-pee/ n., the mispronunciation of words.
• delph: /dɛlf/ n., another name for Delft, tin-glazed earthenware made in Delft since the 17th century, typically having blue decoration on a white ground; a similar earthenware made in England.
• grá: /graw/ n., Irish English, as a term of endearment: "my love"; "dear".
• gyascutus: /ˌgīəˈsk(y)ütəs/ n.,  an imaginary large four-legged beast with legs on one side longer than on the other for walking on hillsides.
• levament: /LEH-vah-ment/ n., the comfort and love that man finds in his wife.
• mytacism: /ˈmīt-ə-siz-əm/ n., excessive or wrong use of the sound of the letter m.
• nidify: /ˈnid-ə-fī/ v., to build a nest.
• penseroso: /pen-suh-ROH-soh/ n., melancholic mood or temperament.
• spanghew: /ˈspæŋ-hju/ v., to throw violently into the air, especially: to throw (a frog) into the air from the end of a stick.

January 17, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
2022-2023 Snowplow Naming Contest Winners
Each year, the Minnesota Department of Transportation holds their Name a Snowplow Contest, which Word-Wednesday follows each year as we remember to do so. Like Mr. Hot Coco, who waited until yesterday for safe ice to tell his fishing story, Word-Wednesday waited until we actually had some snow to report this years winners.

Aaannnd this year's winners are:

• Yer a Blizzard, Harry
• Blizzo
• Clearopathtra
• Better Call Salt
• Han Snowlo
• Blader Tot Hotdish
• Scoop! There it is
• Sleetwood Mac

From A Year with Rilke, January 17 Entry
The Lute, from New Prams

I am the lute. When you describe my body,
its beautiful curving lines,
speak as if speaking of a ripely
curving fruit. Exaggerate the darkness you glimpse in me.

It was Tullia's darkness, which at first was hidden
in her most secret place. The brightness of her hair
was like a sun-filled hall. At moments
some tone from within me

was reflected in her face
and she would sing to me.
Then I arched myself against her softness
and what was within me entered her at last.

Lovers
by Auguste Rodin

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.





*incorrectly: /ˌin-kə-rek(t)-lē/ adj., in a mistaken way; wrongly.