Word-Wednesday for December 11, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for December 11, 2024, the fiftieth Wednesday of the year, the twelfth Wednesday of fall, the second Wednesday of December, and the three-hundred fourty-sixth day of the year, with twenty days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for December 11, 2024
Snow Fleas
The first reported sprinkles of Hypogastrura nivicola, the Official Insect of Palmville Township, was reported with the warming before our recent snowfall on December 7, with a followup appearance in the snow on December 8. Fuculas a flipping, these live in the soil and leaf litter where they eat microscopic fungi, algae, and decaying organic matter. Even though they are very abundant, they go unnoticed during the summer.

Researchers at Queen’s University in Canada have examined the anti-freeze protein that allows snow fleas to be active at colder temperatures. They believe that by better understanding these proteins, similar ones can be used to better store transplant organs and even make better ice cream!


December 11 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


December 11 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for December 11, 2024
Sunrise: 8:08am; Sunset: 4:27pm; 57 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 1:48pm; Moonset: 3:30am, waxing gibbous, 77% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for December 11, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             20                     51                     -9
Low               3                    -34                    -21

The Snow Fairy
By Claude McKay

I
Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,
Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,
Whirling fantastic in the misty air,
Contending fierce for space supremacy.
And they flew down a mightier force at night,
As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,
And they, frail things had taken panic flight
Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.
I went to bed and rose at early dawn
To see them huddled together in a heap,
Each merged into the other upon the lawn,
Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.
The sun shone brightly on them half the day,
By night they stealthily had stol’n away.


II
And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you
Who came to me upon a winter’s night,
When snow-sprites round my attic window flew,
Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light.
My heart was like the weather when you came,
The wanton winds were blowing loud and long;
But you, with joy and passion all aflame,
You danced and sang a lilting summer song.
I made room for you in my little bed,
Took covers from the closet fresh and warm,
A downful pillow for your scented head,
And lay down with you resting in my arm.
You went with Dawn. You left me ere the day,
The lonely actor of a dreamy play.

December 11 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Stretching Day
• National App Day
• National Noodle Ring Day
• Indiana Day
• International Mountain Day

December 11 Word Pun
Sven and Monique went shopping for some cherries and a microphone.
Bought a bing; bought a boom.


December 11 Word Riddle
What do December, January, and February have in common?*


December 11 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

    The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
    To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
    —Judibras


December 11 Etymology Word of the Week
revel
/REV-(ə)l/ v., enjoy oneself in a lively and noisy way, especially with drinking and dancing, from late 14th century (circa 1200 as a surname), "riotous merry-making," also an occasion of this, from Old French revel, resvel "entertainment, revelry," verbal noun from reveler, also rebeller (14th century) "be disorderly, make merry" (see rebel (adj.)). "The development of sense in O.F. is 'rebellion, tumult, disturbance, noisy mirth'" [OED]. Formerly especially a kind of dance or performance given in connection with masks or pageants, a dancing procession (usually revels). Related: revel-rout "riotous throng."


December 11 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 435 K'inich Yax K'uk Mo', founding ruler of Maya city of Copán, marks completion of an important calendrical cycle under Maya Long Count calendar (Stela 63).
• 1395 John "Eleanor" Rykener, a male cross-dressing prostitute, is brought to court in London for "committing that detestable unmentionable and ignominious vice" in late medieval England's only recorded case on same-sex intercourse (verdict unknown).
• 1730 Voltaire's tragedy Brutus premieres.
• 1816 Indiana becomes nineteenth state of the Union.
• 1872 Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback takes office in Louisiana as the first African American US Governor.
• 1882 Boston's Bijou Theatre, first American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity holds its first performance, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera Iolanthe.
• 1908 Frederick Delius' orchestral work In a Summer Garden premieres.
• 1913 Mona Lisa recovered two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum
• 1958 Archibald MacLeish's play J.B. premieres.
• 1960 Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's musical Wildcat with Lucille Ball premieres.
• 2019 Discovery of the earliest figurative artwork in the world, (43,900 years old), figures part human part animal, from cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

December 11 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1566 Manuel Cardoso, Portuguese composer.
• 1676 Johann Georg Weichenberger, Austrian composer.
• 1757 Charles Wesley, English organist and composer.
• 1758 Carl Friedrich Zelter, German composer.
• 1783 Max von Schenkendorf, German poet.
• 1793 Pietro Antonio Coppola, Italian composer.
• 1803 Hector Berlioz, French composer.
• 1810 Alfred de Musset, French writer.
• 1838 Whitney Eugene Thayer, American composer.
• 1840 Namık Kemal, Turkish poet and author.
• 1849 Ellen Key, Swedish author and feminist.
• 1855 Julian Edwards, American composer.
• 1868 Ernst Henrik Ellberg, Swedish composer.
• 1876 Mieczysław Karłowicz, Polish composer.
• 1882 Subramania Bharati, Indian poet.
• 1889 Paul Kornfeld, Czech playwright.
• 1898 Nils Johan Einar Ferlin, Swedish poet.
• 1904 Felix Nussbaum, German surrealist painter.
• 1904 Marge [Marjorie Henderson Buell], American cartoonist.
• 1905 Koos van de Griend, Dutch composer.
• 1905 Robert Henriques, English writer.
• 1906 Birago Diop, Senegalese writer.
• 1906 Jack Purvis, American jazz trumpet player and composer.
• 1907 Norbert Rosseau, Belgian composer.
• 1908 Elliott Carter, American classical composer.
• 1909 Ronald McKie, Australian author.
• 1911 Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist.
• 1918 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian author.
• 1922 Peter Birch, American dancer, choreographer.
• 1928 Peter Firmin, British children's book illustrator and puppet maker.
• 1933 Ernst van Altena, Dutch author.
• 1937 Jim Harrison, American poet and novelist.
• 1938 Rudi Holzapfel, Irish poet.
• 1939 Thomas McGuane, American writer.
• 1941 Bronisław Kazimierz Przybylski, Polish composer.
• 1941 Rogier van Otterloo, Dutch composer.
• 1942 Derek Parfit, British philosopher.
• 1944 David Ashley White, American composer.
• 1979 Colleen Hoover, American author.

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

• athanor: /ATH-ə-nôr/ n., a type of furnace used by alchemists, able to maintain a steady heat for long periods.
• brumby: /BRəM-bē/ n., a wild or unbroken horse.
• doughty: /DOU-dē/, adj., brave and persistent.
• fash: /fash/ v., to vex.
• furcula: /FəR-kyə-lə/ n., the wishbone of a bird; the forked appendage at the end of the abdomen in a springtail, by which the insect jumps.
• gorgio: /GÔR-jē-ō/ n., (among Romani people) a person who is not Romani; a non-Gypsy.
• ibbur: /ee-BOOR/ n., HEBREW עיבור, "pregnancy" or "impregnation" or "incubation", one of the transmigration forms of the soul, always good or positive, while dybbuk ( דיבוק‎), is negative.
• muscarium: /muh-SKAIR-ee-uhm/ n., a garden in which mosses are grown.
• neoteric: /nē-ō-TER-ik/ adj., new or modern; recent; n., a modern person; a person who advocates new ideas.
• truff: /trəf/ n., an unlikely story; a joke, a jest.

December 11, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
Words of the Year
In an annual Word-Wednesday feature, this week explores the Words of the Year as listed by the Oxford English Dicitionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary, where both dictionaries make their selections based on increases in usage over the previous year.

Oxford English Dictionary Selections
brain rot: n., supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.
The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024. The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, but has taken on new significance as an expression in the digital age.

demure: adj., of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing. In August, TikToker Jools Lebron posted the first of a series of videos with a catchphrase that went viral.

dynamic pricing: n., The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand.

lore: n., A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question.

romantasy: (n.) A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline.

slop: n., Art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Selections
polarization: /pō-lə-rə-ZÄ-shən/ n., division into two sharply distinct opposites.

totality: /tō-TA-lə-tē/, n., the phase of an eclipse during which it is total; the state of total eclipse.

demure: /di-MYÚR/ adj., reserved or modest in manner; affectedly modest, reserved, or serious.

fortnight: /FÓRT-nīt/ n., a period of fourteen days; two weeks, originally from the Old English term fēowertȳne niht, “fourteen nights”, but this year from the Taylor Swift song by that namehttps://open.spotify.com/track/2OzhQlSqBEmt7hmkYxfT6m?si=6eef617705904e1f.

pander: /ˈPAN-dər/ v., to say, do, or provide what someone (such as an audience) wants or demands even though it is not good, proper, reasonable, etc.

weird: /wird/ adj., of strange or extraordinary character; odd; as characterized in and earlier Wannaskan Almanac post.

Please post your own candidates for Word of the Year in the comment section.


From A Year with Rilke, December 11 Entry
The Sybil, from New Prams

They called her old even long ago.
But she kept living on, coming down the same street
day after day. They began to reckon
her age in centuries, the way they do with forests.

There she was every evening,
standing in the same place
like the tower of a ruined fortress,
unbent and hollowed out by fire.

Words that, against her will,
swarmed within her,
now fly around her, shrieking,
while others that she still holds back,
lurk in the caverns of her eyes,
waiting for night.

Pythian Sibyl
by Thiébaut Frères

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 letter R.