Word-Wednesday for January 29, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 29, 2025, the fifth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of winter, the fifth Wednesday of January, and the twenty-ninth day of the year, with three-hundred thirty-six days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 29, 2025
Northern Cardinal
Cardinalis cardinalis is a non-migratory species that is generally monogamous. If you see one in Wannaska, it's probably been here for its lifetime, which averages three years, but has been documented up to fifteen years in the wild and twenty-eight years in captivity. Romantic birds, Cardinals participate in a bonding behavior where the male collects seed and brings it to the female, feeding her beak-to-beak. In terms of words, the Cardinal sings many a cheery tune:

cheeeer-a-dote, cheeer-a-dote-dote-dote
purdy, purdy, purdy...whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit
"what-cheer, what-cheer... wheet, wheet, wheet, wheet, and
cheer, cheer, cheer, what, what, what, what

January 29 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 29 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 29, 2025
Sunrise: 7:58am; Sunset: 5:16pm; 2 minutes, 55 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:30am; Moonset: 5:29pm, New Moon, 0% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 29, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             14                     42                     23
Low             -9                    -48                     20

Winter Syntax
by Billy Collins

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler
heading into a blizzard at midnight,
tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face,
the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

There are easier ways of making sense,
the connoisseurship of gesture, for example.
You hold a girl's face in your hands like a vase.
You lift a gun from the glove compartment
and toss it out the window into the desert heat.
These cool moments are blazing with silence.

The full moon makes sense. When a cloud crosses it
it becomes as eloquent as a bicycle leaning
outside a drugstore or a dog who sleeps all afternoon
in a corner of the couch.

Bare branches in winter are a form of writing.
The unclothed body is autobiography.
Every lake is a vowel, every island a noun.

But the traveler persists in his misery,
struggling all night through the deepening snow,
leaving a faint alphabet of bootprints
on the white hills and the white floors of valleys,
a message for field mice and passing crows.

At dawn he will spot the vine of smoke
rising from your chimney, and when he stands
before you shivering, draped in sparkling frost,
a smile will appear in the beard of icicles,
and the man will express a complete thought.

January 29 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Corn Chip Day
• National Puzzle Day
• Kansas Day

January 29 Word Pun
For Monique, the urge to sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight is just a whim away.


January 29 Word Riddle
Where does a baby calf eat?*


January 29 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
CONSCIENCE, n. A morbid condition of the stomach, affecting the gray matter of the brain and producing a mental discord.

    His conscience never did afflict him,
    Save when he'd badly dined;
    Then like a creditor it kicked him,
    Behind.

    Vainly the parson he consulted
    How to allay the pain;
    E'en while he prays he's catapulted
    Again.

    Thus failing times without a number,
    He sought a doctor out,
    Who said: "You've eaten a cucumber,
    No doubt."

    "Yes, Doctor, but I didn't steal it;
    Then why this dark distress?"
    "You mean, my friend, you didn't peel it,
    I guess.

    "Woes that defy the world's religions—
    The Spirit's brooding ills—
    We scatter, like a flock of pigeons,
    With pills."


January 29 Etymology Word of the Week
console
/kənˈsōl/ v., comfort (someone) at a time of grief or disappointment, from 690s, from French consoler "to comfort, console," from Latin consolari "offer solace, encourage, comfort, cheer," from assimilated form of com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix, + solari "to comfort". Or perhaps a back-formation from consolation. The Latin word is glossed in Old English by frefran.


January 29 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1595 William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet is thought to have been first performed. Officially published early 1597.
• 1728 John Gays' satiric work The Beggar's Opera premieres.
• 1772 La Fiera di Venezia (The Fair of Venice), a commedia per musica by Antonio Salieri first performed.
• 1781 Wolfgang Mozart's dramatic opera Idomeneo premieres.
• 1802 John Beckley of Virginia appointed first Librarian of Congress.
• 1845 American writer Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven, first published.
• 1861 US state of Kansas admitted to the Union as the 34th state, eagerly awaiting immigrants from Canada.
• 1947 Arthur Miller's play, All My Sons, premieres.
• 1957 Graham Greene's play, The Potting Shed, premieres.

January 29 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1689 Hubert K. Poot, Dutch poet.
• 1703 Carlmann Kolb, German composer.
• 1711 Giuseppe Bonno, Austrian composer.
• 1737 Thomas Paine, American writer.
• 1763 Johann Gottfried Seume, German writer.
• 1782 Daniel François Esprit Auber, French opera composer,
• 1782 Franciszek Ścigalski, Polish composer.
• 1783 Vasily Zhukovsky, Russian folk poet.
• 1798 Henry Neele, English poet.
• 1801 Johannes Bernardus van Bree, Dutch composer.
• 1824 Karl von Perfall, German composer.
• 1852 Frederic Hymen Cowen, British pianist composer.
• 1852 Ion Luca Caragiale, Romanian playwright.
• 1860 Anton Chekhov, Russian author and playwright.
• 1862 Frederick Delius, British composer.
• 1866 Romain Rolland, French writer.
• 1867 Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Spanish writer.
• 1869 Andrey Scherbachov, Russian composer.
• 1871 Eduardo Lopez-Chavarri y Marco, Spanish composer.
• 1874 Robert Lach, Austrian composer.
• 1876 Ludolf Nielsen, Danish composer.
• 1876 [William] Havergal Brian, British composer.
• 1884 Juhan Aavic, Estonian composer.
• 1889 Francisco Santiago, Filipino composer.
• 1890 Marguerite Canal, French conductor and composer.
• 1893 Edric Cundell, British composer.
• 1893 Martian Negrea, Romanian composer.
• 1895 Muna Lee, American poet.
• 1898 Fernand Quinet, Belgian composer.
• 1898 Karl Bjarnhof, Danish writer.
• 1900 Marco Tajcevic, Serbian composer.
• 1900 Willem Hussem, Dutch painter and poet.
• 1905 Barnett Newmann, American abstract expressionist painter.
• 1910 Colin Middleton, Irish artist.
• 1913 Peter von Zahn, German writer.
• 1914 Menelaos Pallantios, Greek composer.
• 1915 Fred Ramsey, American jazz writer.
• 1915 Halfdan Rasmussen, Danish poet.
• 1916 Barbara Skelton, English writer.
• 1916 Kyra Vayne [Knopmuss], English stage and opera soprano.
• 1919 Norman Frederick Simpson, British playwright.
• 1924 Luigi Nono, Italian avant-garde composer.
• 1924 Marcelle Ferron, Quebec painter and stained glass artist.
• 1924 Peter Voulkos, American artist.
• 1927 Edward Abbey, American author.
• 1928 Bengt Hambraeus, Swedish Canadian composer.
• 1934 Paul Gutama Soegijo, Indonesian composer.
• 1936 Patrick Caulfield, British painter.
• 1939 Germaine Greer, Australian author.
• 1940 Justino DÍaz, Puerto Rican opera singer.
• 1942 Robin Morgan, American poet.
• 1943 Tim Souster, British composer.
• 1944 Hans Plomp, Dutch writer and poet.
• 1957 Grazyna Miller, Italian poet.
• 1960 James "JG" Thirlwell, Australian composer.
• 1961 Jan Balabán, Czech writer.
• 1962 Olga Tokarczuk, Polish writer.
• 1971 Matthias Pintscher, German composer.

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

• béguin: /bay-GAN/ n., infatuation; a crush.
• divertissement: /də-VəR-dəs-mənt/ n., a minor entertainment or diversion; BALLET, a short dance within a ballet that displays a dancer's technical skill without advancing the plot or character development.
• gup: /gəp/ n., foolish talk; nonsense.
• holt: /hōlt/ n., the den of an animal, especially that of an otter.
• madrassa: /mə-DRA-sə/ n., a college for Islamic instruction.
• panettone: /pan-ə-TŌ-nē/ n., a rich Italian bread made with eggs, fruit, and butter and typically eaten at Christmas and after buying tickets for the ferry to Venice.
• precentor: /prə-SEN-(t)ər/ n., a person who leads a congregation in its singing or (in a synagogue) prayers.
• repique: /rē-PĒK/ n., (in piquet) the scoring of 30 points on declarations alone before beginning to play; v., score a repique against (one's opponent).
• superbient: /su-PER-bee-uhnt/ adj., insolent, overbearing; proud, arrogant.
• vicesimal: /vye-SES-uh-muhl/ adj., based on the number twenty, or relating to the number twenty; taking place in intervals of twenty.

January 29, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
bahuvrihi
/bä-hüv-RĒ-hē/ n., a type of compound word that describes a person or thing by identifying a specific quality or characteristic, from Sanskrit: बहुव्रीहि, romanized: bahuvrīhi, literally,  "having much rice", originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich), a type of compound word that denotes a referent by specifying a certain characteristic or quality the referent possesses. A bahuvrihi is exocentric, so that the compound is not a hyponym [/HĪ-pə-nim/ n., a word of more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it. For example, spoon is a hyponym of cutlery] of its head, e.g., a sabretooth (smil-odon) is neither a sabre nor a tooth, but a feline with sabre-like teeth.

Bahuvrihi compounds are called possessive compounds in English, where the last constituent is usually a noun, while the whole compound is a noun or an adjective. The pronunciation accent is on the first constituent. Bahuvrihis often describe different types of persons:

butterball
flatfoot
highbrow
killjoy
lowlife
pickpocket
showoff
spoilsport
tenderfoot
turncoat
twinkletoes
wagtail
white-collar

Others describe objects:

breakfast
breakwater
dreadnought
hatchback
paperback
scarecrow
traffic-light

Some emphasize color:

blue-bonnet
bluestocking
greenback
graybeard
red cross
redhead
redcap
redeye

Many focus on body parts, especially one's head or mental capacity:

barefoot
birdbrain
blockhead
bonehead
cutthroat
egghead
halfwit
heavy-handed
knucklehead
long-legs
scatterbrain
skinhead,
tenderfoot

Bahuvrihis add color to all writing, especially when the author creates new bahuvrihi. Experiment with novel bahuvrihis this week in your prams, squibs, prose, and comments.


From A Year with Rilke, January 29 Entry
You Come and Go, from The Book of Hours I, 45

You come and go. The doors swing closed
ever more gently, almost without a shudder.
Of all who move through the quiet houses,
you are the quietest.

We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading
and makes it glow.

Rilke by a Window

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.







*In a calfateria.