Word-Wednesday for February 19, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for February 19, 2025, the eighteenth Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of winter, the third Wednesday of February, and the fiftieth day of the year, with three-hundred fifteen remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for February 19, 2025
Mephitis mephitis in Words
The word skunk dates from the 1630s, squunck, adapted from a southern New England Algonquian language (probably Abenaki) seganku, from Proto-Algonquian šeka:kwa, from šek- "to urinate" + -a:kw "fox". Skunk has historic use as an insult, attested from 1841. In The Jesuit Relations, also known as Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France, which chronicles of the Jesuit missions in New France, characterize the skunk like this:

The other is a low animal, about the size of a little dog or cat. I mention it here, not on account of its excellence, but to make of it a symbol of sin. I have seen three or four of them. It has black fur, quite beautiful and shining; and has upon its back two perfectly white stripes, which join near the neck and tail, making an oval that adds greatly to their grace. The tail is bushy and well furnished with hair, like the tail of a Fox; it carries it curled back like that of a Squirrel. It is more white than black; and, at the first glance, you would say, especially when it walks, that it ought to be called Jupiter's little dog. But it is so stinking and casts so foul an odor, that it is unworthy of being called the dog of Pluto. No sewer ever smelled so bad. I would not have believed it if I had not smelled it myself. Your heart almost fails you when you approach the animal; two have been killed in our court, and several days afterward there was such a dreadful odor throughout our house that we could not endure it. I believe the sin smelled by Saint Catherine de Sienne must have had the same vile odor.

In Southern United States dialect, the term polecat is sometimes used as a colloquial nickname for a skunk, even though polecats are only distantly related to skunks. As a verb, skunk is used to describe the act of overwhelmingly defeating an opponent in a game or competition. Skunk is also used to refer to certain strong-smelling strains of Cannabis whose smell has been compared to that of a skunk's spray.

Skunks don’t hibernate, but they do hunker down in the winter. Crepuscular, solitary beings in most circumstances, up to a dozen females huddle together in winter, while the males den alone.

Spot the Space Station:
Wednesday, Feb 19, 6:34 AM, Visible: for 6 minutes, Maximum Height: 64°, Appears: 12° above West, Disappears: 10° above East North East.


February 19 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


February 19 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for February 19, 2025
Sunrise: 7:25am; Sunset: 5:51pm; 3 minutes, 27 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 12:58am; Moonset: 9:38pm, waning gibbous, 62% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for February 19, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             21                     50                       5
Low             -3                    -45                    -15

Winter Sky
by Boris Pasternak

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its rink with the peal of night.

Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,
pride carving its trace as you race by.
each turn’s a constellation cut there,
scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.

The air is fettered in frozen iron.
Oh, skaters! There – it’s all the same,
that, like snake’s eyes set in ivory,
night’s on earth, a domino game:

that moon, a numb hound’s tongue
is there, frozen tight: that mouths like
the forgers of coins’ – are stung,
filled with lava of breathtaking ice.

February 19 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Arabian Horse Day
• National Vet Girls Rise Day
• National Lash Day
• National Chocolate Mint Day

February 19 Word Pun
Mr. Hot Coco’s father taught him a trick to keep the Canadian bacon from curling in the pan.

Take away their little brooms.


February 19 Word Riddle
Who’s the best singer in the Tulsa bars?*

A Joe McDonnell original

February 19 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

    If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater
    To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
    Behold in me a man of mark and note
    Whom no elector e'er denied a vote!—
    An undiscredited, unhooted gent
    Who might, for all we know, be President
    By acclamation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer—
    I'm passing with a wide and open ear!
    —Jonathan Fomry



February 19 Etymology Word of the Week
tresspass
/TRE-spas/ v., enter the owner's land or property without permission; commit an offense against (a person or a set of rules); n., entry to a person's land or property without their permission; a sin or offense, from circa 1300, trespassen, "transgress in some active manner, commit an aggressive offense; to sin, behave badly in general," from Old French trespasser "pass beyond or across, cross, traverse; infringe, violate," from tres- "beyond" (from Latin trans) + passer "go by, pass". In old civil law, generally, "commit any transgression not amounting to a felony;" specifically by mid-15th century as "enter or pass through (land) without right or permission" first attested in royal forest laws. To trespass against (circa 1300) is "injure, offend, maltreat; display willful disregard."


February 19 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 842 Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ends as a council in Constantinople formally reinstates the veneration of icons in churches.
• 1600 Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in South American recorded history.
• 1736 George Frideric Handel's opera Alexander's Feast premieres.
• 1771 French astronomer Charles Messier adds M46-M49 to his catalog (galactic clusters in Puppis & Hydra & galaxy in Virgo).
• 1825 Franz Grillparzer's Konig Ottokars Gluck premieres.
• 1878 Thomas Edison is granted a patent for his cylinder phonograph.
• 1897 Inaugural meeting of the Women's Institute at Stoney Creek, Ontario, set at the suggestion of Adelaide Hoodless, the organization will rapidly spread around the world.
• 1913 First prize inserted into a Cracker Jack box.
• 1914 Four-year old Charlotte May Pierstorff mailed by train from Grangeville, Idaho to her grandparents’ house 73 miles away in most famous "child in the post" instance.
• 1914 Riccardo Zandonai's opera Francesco da Rimini premieres.
• 1919 Pan-African Congress, organized by American civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois is held at the Grand Hotel in Paris, France.
• 1923 Jean Sibelius' 6th Symphony premieres.
• 1923 Philip Barry's play You & I premieres.
• 1932 William Faulkner completes his novel Light in August.
• 1949 First Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Ezra Pound.
• 1953 William Inge's Picnic premieres.
• 1963 Robert Frost wins Bollingen Prize.
• 1989 Edgar Bowers wins Bollingen Prize.
• 1995 Kenneth Koch wins Bollingen Prize.

February 19 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1473 Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer.
• 1671 Charles-Hubert Gervais, French baroque composer.
• 1717 David Garrick, English writer.
• 1722 Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer.
• 1743 (Ridolfo) Luigi Boccherini, Italian cellist and composer.
• 1754 Vincenzo Monti, Italian poet.
• 1762 Friedrich Franz Hurka, Bohemian operatic tenor, conductor, and composer.
• 1780 Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, German philologist.
• 1812 Lauro Rossi, Italian composer.
• 1819 Mark Prager Lindo, English-Dutch writer.
• 1841 Felipe Pedrell, Spanish guitarist, composer.
• 1843 Adelina Patti, Italian opera soprano.
• 1863 Emánuel Moór, Hungarian composer.
• 1876 Constantin Brancusi, Romanian French sculptor.
• 1877 Else Berg, German born Dutch painter.
• 1877 Gabriele Münter, German painter.
• 1877 Louis Aubert French composer.
• 1880 Arthur Shepherd, American composer.
• 1881 Paul Zech, German writer.
• 1886 George Luther Foote, American composer.
• 1888 Jose Eustasio Rivera, Colombian poet and novelist.
• 1899 Yury Olesha, Russian novelist.
• 1900 Giorgos Seferis [Giōrgios Stylianou Seferiadēs], Greek writer.
• 1902 John Bubbles, American rhythm tap dancer.
• 1903 Kay Boyle, American novelist.
• 1903 Sadiq Hidajat, Persian writer.
• 1904 Maurice O'Sullivan, Irish writer.
• 1904 Havank [Hans van der Kallen], Dutch thriller and mystery writer.
• 1906 Grace Mary Williams, Welsh composer.
• 1906 Hendrik Spruit, Dutch conductor and composer.
• 1911 Nikola Hercigonja, Croatian composer.
• 1912 Adolf Rudnicki [Aron Hirschhorn], Polish writer.
• 1913 Alvin Derold Etler, American oboist, and composer.
• 1915 Bruce Wayne, aka Batman.
• 1917 Carson McCullers, American novelist.
• 1920 Jaan Kross, Estonian writer.
• 1921 Claude Rene Georges Pascal, French composer.
• 1922 Josef Matěj, Czech trombonist, and composer.
• 1923 Donald Lybbert, American composer.
• 1925 Jindřich Feld, Czech composer.
• 1926 György Kurtág, Hungarian pianist, composer.
• 1934 Carole Eastman, American screenwriter.
• 1936 Marin Sorescu, Romanian poet, playwright and artist.
• 1940 Smokey Robinson, American soul singer and songwriter.
• 1941 Carlos Roqué Alsina, French-Argentinian concert pianist, composer.
• 1941 Francisco Feliciano, Filipino conductor and composer.
• 1941 Stephen Dobyns, American author and poet.
• 1942 Annabel Davis-Goff, Irish writer.
• 1945 Thomas Brasch, German writer.
• 1946 Alexander Tchaikovsky, Russian composer.
• 1947 Ferdousi Priyabhashini, Bangladeshi sculptor.
• 1948 (Whilhelmus) "Pim" Fortuyn, Dutch writer,.
• 1949 William Messner-Loebs, American comics writer and artist.
• 1952 Amy Tan, American novelist.
• 1958 Helen Fielding, English writer.
• 1963 Laurell K. Hamilton, American writer.
• 1964 Dmitri Lipskerov, Russian writer.
• 1971 Jeff Kinney, American author.

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

• alytarch: /AL-ih-tark/ n., an official responsible for maintaining order at the ancient Olympic Games.
• brane: /brān/ n., PHYSICS, an extended object with any given number of dimensions, of which strings in string theory are examples with one dimension. Our universe is a three-brane.
• clastic: /KLAS-tik/ adj., denoting rocks composed of broken pieces of older rocks; able to be disconstituted into component objects.
• curvet: /kər-VET/ v., (of a horse) perform a series of jumps on the hind legs; n., a graceful or energetic leap.
• dimble: /DIM-(b)əl/ n., a ravine with a watercourse.
• glaikery: /GLAY-kur-ee/ n., foolish, silly, or playful deception.
• hoach: /hōch/ v., to shake to and fro; be full of or swarming with.
• malagrugrous: /mal-uh-GROO-grus/ adj., dismal, depressing; dreary or gloomy; doleful or morose.
• penelopize: / puh-NEL-uh-pighz/ v., to delay or play for time.
• pyrolysis: /pī-RÄL-ə-səs/ n., decomposition brought about by high temperatures.

February 19, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
experience
/ik-SPI-rē-əns/ n., practical contact with and observation of facts or events; v., encounter or undergo (an event or occurrence), from late 14th century, "observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; an event which has affected one," from Old French esperience "experiment, proof, experience" (13th century), from Latin experientia "a trial, proof, experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nominative experiens) "experienced, enterprising, active, industrious," present participle of experiri "to try, test," from ex "out of" + peritus "experienced, tested," from Proto-Indo-Europiean per-yo-, suffixed form of root per- "to try, risk." Meaning "state of having done something and gotten handy at it" is from late 15th century.

Experience as test, school, teacher; with lessons characterized as good or bad. One's approach to actively or passively embrace the lessons of experience suggest a lot about how one lives life as either a glass half empty or half full. Here are a few words about how different writers have experienced experience:

Experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance as the folly that we have already embraced.

Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary

Experience, the universal Mother of Sciences.

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

All experience is an arch, to build upon.

Henry Brooks Adams, in The Education of Henry Adams

Experience is what you get looking for something else.

Mary Pettibone Poole

Experience is the one thing you can’t get for nothing.

Author Unknown

Experience is always a trustworthy guide; it may not tell you everything, but it never lies.

George Sand

Experience is the extract of suffering.

Arthur Helps

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

Albert Camus

Experience isn’t interesting till it begins to repeat itself—in fact, till it does that, it hardly is experience.

Elizabeth Bowen

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

Minna Antrim

Experience is a good teacher, though her fees are terribly high.

W. R. Inge

Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools learn in no other.

Ben Franklin

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

Vernon Law

Experience—A comb life gives you after you lose your hair.

Judith Stern

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school-fees are heavy.

Thomas Carlyle

Experience may be hard but we claim its gifts because they are real, even though our feet bleed on its stones.

Mary Parker Follett

But let me say this about learning experiences: they’re weird. Or put it this way: what you learn from a learning experience is generally something else.

Peg Bracken

I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a “learning experience.” Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a “learning experience.” It makes me feel less stupid.

P. J. O’Rourke

Experience has two things to teach: the first that we must correct a great deal; the second, that we must not correct too much.

Eugène Delacroix

If only one could have two lives: the first, in which to make one’s mistakes, which seem as if they had to be made; and the second in which to profit by them.

D. H. Lawrence

At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.

Ellen Key

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

James Russell Lowell

We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.

Malcolm Gladwell

Experience is an excellent doctor, though he never has a diploma.

Fanny Fern

A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Everything you experience is what constitutes you as a human being, but the experience passes away and the person’s left. The person is the residue.

Ilka Chase

I don’t know what people expect. Young men often lack judgment. What is the old saying? “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.”

Rita Mae Brown

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams, in Last Chance to See

The only thing more painful than learning from experience is not learning from experience.

Author Unknown

The fruit of life is experience, not happiness.

Amelia E. Barr

The authentic insight and experience of any human soul, were it but insight and experience in hewing of wood and drawing of water, is real knowledge, a real possession and acquirement.

Thomas Carlyle

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; third, by experience, which is bitterest.

Confucius

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

G. K. Chesterton

Difficult times always create opportunities for you to experience more love in your life.

Barbara De Angelis

What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Aldous Huxley

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging the future but by the past.

Patrick Henry

Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.

American Proverb

Never, “for the sake of peace and quiet,” deny your own experience or convictions.

Dag Hammarskjöld

Experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads, suspended in the chamber of consciousness and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.

Henry James

One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.

James Baldwin

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

Muriel Rukeyser

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot-stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Mark Twain

From A Year with Rilke, February 19 Entry
There is No Image, from From The Book of Hours I, 60

I want to utter you. I want to portray you
not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple bark.
There is no image I could invent
that your presence would not eclipse.

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.







*Carrie Okie.