Word-Wednesday for October 23, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 23, 2024, the forty-third Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of fall, the fourth Wednesday of October, and the two-hundred-ninety-seventh day of the year, with sixty-nine days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for October 23, 2024
Anthocyanins
/an-THə-SĪə-nən/ n., a blue, violet, or red flavonoid pigment found in plants. Anthocyanins absorb blue, blue-green, and green light. Therefore, the light reflected by leaves containing anthocyanins appears red. Unlike chlorophyll and carotene — the other two leaf pigments — anthocyanins are not attached to cell membranes, but are dissolved in the cell sap. We have anthocyanins to thank for our fall maple and oak tree reds, as well as for the stunning reds of the ground shrubs.

October 23 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


October 23 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for October 23, 2024
Sunrise: 7:57am; Sunset: 6:19pm; 3 minutes, 23 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 11:14pm; Moonset: 3:19pm, waning gibbous, 57% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for October 23, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             46                     76                     50
Low              28                     11                      34

Fall, Leaves, Fall
by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

October 23 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Medical Assistants Recognition Day
• National Horror Movie Day
• Boston Cream Pie Day
• Swallows Depart from San Juan Capistrano Day
• International Mole Day
• National TV Talk Show Host Day
• IPOD Day

October 23 Word Pun Pram

My carnival gal is hot and she's cool
She always stays calm, she's never the fool
She also is hot- I'm not talking blarney
Everyone knows her as Connie chill carney
She said I’m too old, too liberal- she left me
It hurt when she called me a chilled-over lefty

by Chairman Joe

October 23 Word Riddle
Four jolly men sat down to play and played all night, ’til the break of day.
They played for cash and not for fun, with a separate score for everyone.
When it came time to square accounts, they’d all had made quite fair amounts.
Not one had lost and all had gained. Can you explain?*


October 23 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

    He saw a ghost.
    It occupied—that dismal thing!—
    The path that he was following.
    Before he'd time to stop and fly,
    An earthquake trifled with the eye
    That saw a ghost.
    He fell as fall the early good;
    Unmoved that awful vision stood.
    The stars that danced before his ken
    He wildly brushed away, and then
    He saw a post.
                        —Jared Macphester

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions somebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of my own experience.

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in his habit as he lived." To believe in him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grasp on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.

October 23 Etymology Word of the Week
swatch
/swôCH/ n., a small sample of fabric intended to demonstrate the look of a larger piece, from 1510s, "countercheck of a tally," a Northumberland dialect word, later "a tally attached to cloth sent to be dyed" (1610s, in Yorkshire), a word of unknown origin. Century Dictionary compares swath. The meaning "sample piece or strip of cloth cut off for a pattern or sample" is from 1640s. Swatch-book is attested by 1956.


October 23 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 4004 BC James Ussher's proposed creation date of the world according to the Bible.
• 1850 The first National Women's Rights Convention begins in Worcester, Massachusetts.
• 1958 Belgian artist Peyo's comic characters, the Smurfs, make their debut in Spirou magazine.
• 1958 Soviet novelist Boris Pasternak, wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

October 23 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1543 Juan de la Cueva, Spanish dramatist.
• 1773 Pietro Generali, Italian composer.
• 1794 Joseph Panny, Austrian violinist and composer.
• 1805 Adalbert Stifter, Austrian author and painter.
• 1805 Adalbert Stifter, Czech painter and writer.
• 1819 Isac Baker Woodbury, American composer.
• 1840 Mary Mathews Adams, Irish poet.
• 1844 Robert Bridges, English poet.
• 1846 Alexander Arkhangelsky, Russian composer.
• 1865 Neltje Blanchan, American nature writer.
• 1885 Lawren Harris, Canadian landscape painter.
• 1893 Jean Absil, Belgian organist and composer.
• 1906 Miriam Gideon, American composer.
• 1919 Katie Lee, American folk singer, environmentalist, and author.
• 1921 Denise Duval, French soprano.
• 1921 İlhan Usmanbaş, Turkish composer.
• 1925 Manos Hatzidakis, Greek conductor.
• 1927 Edward Kienholz, American sculptor.
• 1927 Leszek Kołakowski, Polish writer.
• 1932 Vasily Belov, Russian author, poet and playwright.
• 1935 Zbigniew Rudzinski, Polish composer.
• 1942 Michael Crichton, American novelist.
• 1955 Toshio Hosokawa, Japanese composer.
• 1959 Weird Al Yankovic, American composer and accordionist.
• 1961 Laurie Halse Anderson, American writer.
• 1974 Derek Landy, Irish author.
• 1984 Meghan McCain, American author.

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

• alabandical: /al-uh-BAN-di-kuhl/ adj., stupified by drink.
• brochity: /BROH-chuh-tee/ n., projecting or crooked quality of teeth; the state or quality of being pierced, perforated, or full of holes.
• coquinate: /koh-KWIN-ayt/ v., to behave as a cook.
• fantoosh: /fan-TOOSH/ adj., SCOTTISH, fancy, showy, flashy; stylish, sophisticated; fashionable, exotic. Often used disparagingly, implying ostentation or pretentiousness.
• finkle: /FIN-kuhl/ n., a facial wrinkle.
• hibernaculum: /hī-bər-NA-kyə-ləm/ n., a shelter occupied during the winter by a dormant animal (such as an insect, snake, bat, marmot, or human bachelor).
• prevenient: /prē-VĒN-ē-ənt/ adj., preceding in time or order; antecedent.
• quietus: /KWĪ-ə-dəs/ n., death or something that causes death, regarded as a release from life.
• surfeit: /SəR-fət/ n., an excessive amount of something.
• yob: /yäb/ n., a rude, noisy, and aggressive young person; any employment had by Sven.

October 23, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
Seafarers
Whether writing about the Pequod or a modern naval vessel maneuvering across the surface of the ocean, all these ships have a number of seafarers with many interesting job titles. After spending a day with Matt McDonnell — a Second Mate and knot magician — hauling his dock and boat out of the lake for the season, I became inspired to look into the vocabulary of seamanship. Imagine being able to tie a knot in seconds to pull several thousand pounds of payload, then be able to untie that same knot just as quickly. 

Today, Word-Wednesday looks at just one seafarer — the boatswain: /BOH-sən/ n., also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, who is the most senior mate of the deck department and is responsible for the components of a ship's hull. The boatswain supervises the other members of the ship's deck department, and typically is not a watchkeeper: /wäCH KĒP-ər/ n., a crew member whose role is constantly active as they are considered essential to the safe operation of the vessel and also allow the ship to respond to emergencies and other situations quickly. These watches are divided into work periods to ensure that the roles are always occupied at all times. Watch roles include: command duty officer, conning officer, quartermaster, helmsman, lookout, gangway watch, radio watch, and fire watch.

Other boatswain duties depend upon the ship, crew, and circumstances. Interestingly, submarines do not have a boatswain, but they do have a coxswain: /ˈkäksn/ n., the steersman of a ship's boat, lifeboat, racing boat, or other boat. The boatswain works in a ship's deck department as the foreman of the unlicensed (crew members without a mate's license) deck crew. A boatswain must be highly skilled in all matters of marlinespike [/MÄR-lən-spīk/ n., a pointed metal tool used by sailors to separate strands of rope or wire, especially in splicing] seamanship required for working on deck of a seagoing vessel. The boatswain is distinguished from other able seamen by the supervisory roles: planning, scheduling, and assigning work.

Beyond these supervisory roles, the boatswain regularly inspects the vessel and performs a variety of routine, skilled, and semi-skilled duties to maintain all areas of the ship not otherwise maintained by members of the engine department. These duties include cleaning, painting, and maintaining the vessel's hull, superstructure and deck equipment, as well as executing a formal preventive maintenance program, cargo rigging, winch operations, deck maintenance, working aloft. The boatswain is well versed in the care and handling of lines, and has knowledge of knots, hitches, bends, whipping, and splices as needed to perform tasks such as mooring a vessel.

The word boatswain has been in the English language since approximately 1450, derived from late Old English batswegen, from bat (boat) concatenated with Old Norse sveinn (swain), meaning a young man (as opposed to Sven), apprentice, a follower, retainer, or servant. Directly translated to modern Norwegian it would be båtsvenn, while the actual crew title in Norwegian is båtsmann ("boats-man").

There are several boatswains and boatswain's mates in literature. The boatswain in William Shakespeare's The Tempest is a central character in the opening scene and who appears again briefly in the final scene. Typhoon by Joseph Conrad has a nameless boatswain who tells Captain Sven MacWhirr of a "lump" of men going overboard during the peak of the storm. Also, the character Bill Bobstay in Gilbert and Sullivan's musical comedy H.M.S. Pinafore is alternatively referred to as a "bos'un" and a "boatswain's mate". Who can forget boatswain Smee from Peter Pan? Lord Byron had a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain, and wrote the famous poem "Epitaph to a Dog", having a monument made for Boatswain at Newstead Abbey. Though the Pequod was at sea for over three years in the telling of Moby Dick, Melville never named its boatswain.


From A Year with Rilke, October 23 Entry
Autumn, from Book of Images

Leaves are falling, falling as if from afar,
as if, far off in the heavens, gardens were wilting.
And as they fall, their gestures say "it's over."

In the night the heavy Earth is falling
from out of all the stars into loneliness.

We all are falling. This hand here is falling.
Just look: it is in all of us.

Yet there is one who holds this falling
with infinite tenderness in her hands.

The Walk: Falling Leaves
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.







*The men were in a band.