Word-Wednesday for October 30, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 30, 2024, the forty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of fall, the fifth Wednesday of October, and the three-hundred-fourth day of the year, with sixty-two days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for October 30, 2024
Bryophytes
/BRĪ-ə-fīt/ n., any of a division (Bryophyta) of nonflowering plants comprising the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Mosses and other bryophytes may seem like an odd choice for a phenology post, but not for Word-Wednesday. But think about it — here is a simple, plentiful species that is present in almost the exact same form all year long here in Wannaska. Bryophytes are simple because they lack roots and vascular systems. Bryophytes do not have seeds or flowers; instead they reproduce largely via spores or vegetatively. They inhabit a variety of environments throughout the state — growing in mats or cushions on rocks, soil, or on bark and coarse woody debris of forest trees. Identifying mosses and bryophytes can be difficult due to their diminutive stature and subtle differences between species, but the Minnesota DNR has made it easier for bryophytophiles by creating four vividly illustrated guides — here, here, here, and here.

October 30 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


October 30 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for October 30, 2024
Sunrise: 8:08am; Sunset: 6:07pm; 3 minutes, 15 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 6:12am; Moonset: 5:15pm, waning crescent, 2% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for October 30, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             42                     71                     44
Low              25                      5                     27

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

October 30 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Wicked Day
• National Publicist Day
• Speak Up for Service Day
• National Candy Corn Day
• Checklists Day
• Create a Great Funeral Day
• Haunted Refrigerator Night
• Mischief Night (Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other places).

October 30 Word Pun
Puns about monorails always make for decent one-liners.


October 30 Word Riddle
Why does Humpty Dumpty love autumn so much?*


October 30 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

    Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once
    In a thick volume, and all authors known,
    If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,
    Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
    Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,
    To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
    However feebly be his arrows thrown,
    Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
    All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,
    With lusty lung, here on his western strand
    With all thine offspring thronged from every land,
    Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
    And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl,
    Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.
                                        —Aramis Loto Frope


October 30 Etymology Word of the Week
fascist
/FASH-ist/ adj., a follower of a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition, from 1921, from Italian partito nazionale fascista, the anti-communist political movement organized 1919 under Benito Mussolini (1883-1945); from Italian fascio "group, association," literally "bundle," from Latin fasces, 1590s, "bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting" (plural of fascis "bundle" of wood, etc.), from Proto-Italic faski- "bundle," perhaps from Proto-Indo-European bhasko- "band, bundle" (source also of Middle Irish basc "neckband," Welsh baich "load, burden," perhaps also Old English bæst "inner bark of the linden tree"). Carried before a lictor, a superior Roman magistrate, as a symbol of power over life and limb: the sticks symbolized punishment by whipping, the axe-head execution by beheading. Hence in Latin it also meant, figuratively, "high office, supreme power."

Fasci "groups of men organized for political purposes" had been a feature of Sicily since circa 1895, and the 20th century totalitarian sense probably came directly from this but was influenced by the historical Roman fasces, which became the party symbol. As a noun from 1922 in English, earlier in Italian plural fascisti (1921), and until 1923 in English it often appeared in its Italian form, as an Italian word. [Fowler: "Whether this full anglicization of the words is worth while cannot be decided till we know whether the things are to be temporary or permanent in England" -- probably an addition to the 1930 reprint, retained in 1944 U.S. edition.] Related: Fascistic, Brown Shirt, corporative, quisling, Falange, Duce, Falangist.


October 30 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1868 John Menard of Louisiana is first African American elected to US Congress.
• 1873 P. T. Barnum's circus, "Greatest Show on Earth", debuts.
• 1888 John J. Loud patents ballpoint pen.
• 1896 Amy Beach's Gaelic Symphony debuts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the first major work by an American female composer.
• 1899 British Morning Post reporter Winston Churchill reaches Capetown.
• 1905 George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs Warren's Profession premieres.
• 1918 Slovakia asks for creation of Czechoslovakian state.
• 1919 Baseball league presidents call for abolishment of spitball.
• 1931 Eugene Ormandy makes his debut leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, substituting for an ailing Arturo Toscanini.
• 1938 A radio broadcast of H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds, narrated by Orson Welles, allegedly causes a mass panic.
• 1940 One Night in the Tropics, first film for Abbott and Costello, premieres in Paterson, New Jersey.
• 1944 Aaron Copland's ballet score Appalachian Spring premieres.
• 1945 US government announces end of shoe rationing.

October 30 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1576 Enrico Caterino Davila, Italian writer.
• 1624 Paul Pellisson, French writer.
• 1712 Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, German painter.
• 1735 Edward Miller, English composer.
• 1741 Angelica Kauffmann, Swiss Neoclassical painter.
• 1751 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish playwright.
• 1762 André Chénier, French poet.
• 1786 Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé, French Canadian writer.
• 1790 Karol Joseph Lipinski, Polish composer.
• 1790 Rinse Posthumus, Frisian writer and poet.
• 1821 Cenobio Paniagua, Mexican composer.
• 1839 Alfred Sisley, French impressionist painter.
• 1840 Carlotta Patti, Italian soprano.
• 1843 Henri Regnault, French painter.
• 1861 Antoine Bourdelle, French sculptor,.
• 1864 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, American pianist.
• 1871 Paul Valéry [Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry], French author and poet.
• 1881 Elizabeth Madox Roberts, American poet and novelist.
• 1881 Lena Christ, German writer.
• 1885 Ezra Pound, American poet.
• 1886 Zoe Akins, American playwright.
• 1887 Georg Heym, German writer,.
• 1894 Peter Warlock [Philip Heseltine], British composer.
• 1896 Anatoly Novikov, Russian-Soviet composer.
• 1896 Kostas Karyotakis, Greek poet.
• 1897 Agustín Lara, Mexican composer.
• 1910 Miguel Hernadez Gilabert, Spanish poet.
• 1928 Michael Andrews, British painter.
• 1935 Ágota Kristóf, Hungarian writer.
• 1942 Sven-David Sandström, Swedish composer.
• 1947 Chris Komar, American ballet dancer.
• 1949 Michal Ajvaz, Czech poet and novelist.
• 1962 Gerard Beirne, Irish writer.

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

• aphotic: /ā-FŌ-tik/ adj., being the deep zone of an ocean or lake receiving too little light to permit photosynthesis.
• diel: /DĪ(ə)l/ adj., denoting or involving a period of 24 hours.
• moraine: /mə-RĀN/ n., a mass of rocks and sediment carried down and deposited by a glacier, typically as ridges at its edges or extremity.
• neritic: /nə-RI-dik/ adj., relating to or denoting the shallow part of the sea near a coast and overlying the continental shelf.
• paranym: /PAIR-uh-nim/ n., a near synonym; a euphemistic word or phrase whose literal sense is contrary to the reality of what it refers to, used esp. to disguise or misrepresent the truth about something.
• radicle: /RAD-ə-k(ə)l/ n., the part of a plant embryo that develops into the primary root; a rootlike subdivision of a nerve or vein.
• roytish: /ROY-dish/ adj., wild, unruly.
• subrisive: /suh-BRIGH-siv/ adj., exhibiting or characterized by a smiling playfulness; humorous; amused.
• sverdrup: /SVER-droop/ n., a unit of measurement (Sv) used in oceanography to measure the volumetric flow rate of ocean currents. named after Norwegian explorer and scientist Harald Sverdrup, whose contributions are especially significant in oceanography.
• ziti: /ZEE-dee/ n., a variety of pasta in the form of short hollow tubes resembling large macaroni; a dish of this pasta, typically served baked in a tomato sauce.

October 30, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
epizeuxis
/ep-ə-ZÜKZ-ə̇s/ n., the immediate repetition of a word or phrase for rhetorical or poetic effect, from the Greek word ἐπίζευξις (epizeugnumi), which means "fastening together", a compound of the prefix epi- and the noun zeûxis, which means "yoking (of oxen), joining". Not a subtle figure of speech, immediate repetition of the same word is more like a Norwegian battering ram. Epizeuxis provides powerful, relentless emphasis toward different ends: to clarify a point; to rally an audience; to insist upon a word's meaning; to communicate despair or weariness, and, of course, for humor. Shakespeare used epizeuxis to good effect, as did other successful writers:
 
From Hamlet:
Polonius: “What do you read, my lord?”
Hamlet: “Words, words, words”

From King Lear:
King Lear: "King Lear: No life! Never, never, never, never, never!"

Enter Lear with Cordelia in his arms,
followed by a Gentleman.
King Lear: 'Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!'

Winston Churchill, October 1941:
"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Henry David Thoreau, from Walden, in the essay, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For:
"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail."

From The Cat in the Hat:
The Cat in the Hat: “Up, up, up with a fish!”

And last, but not least...
From Monty Python:

Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!
Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am
Lovely Spam! (Lovely Spam!)
Lovely Spam! (Lovely Spam!)
Lovely Spam!
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!

From A Year with Rilke, October 30 Entry
To Meet and Be Met, from Book of Hours, I, 1

I feel it now: there's a power in me
to grasp and give shape to the world.

I know nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.

study of an apple
by Paul Cézanne

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.







*Because he had a great fall.