Word-Wednesday for May 21, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for May 21, 2025, the fourteenth Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of spring, the third Wednesday of May, and the one-hundred forty-first day of the year, with two-hundred twenty-four days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for May 21, 2025
Promising Blueberry Outlook
This year's Vaccinium myrtilloides crop is looking bountiful in terms of blossoms. Nutritionally, blueberries consist of 14% carbohydrates, 0.7% protein, 0.3% fat, and 84% water, containing only negligible amounts of micronutrients, with moderate levels of the essential dietary mineral manganese, vitamin C, vitamin K and dietary fiber. Generally, the nutrient contents of blueberries are a low percentage of the DV, so plan to eat lots of them. If you count, 100-gram/3.5 ounce serving provides 57 calories.

Word-Wednesday headquarters had it's first official ruby-throated hummingbird visitor yesterday.


May 21 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


May 21 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for May 21, 2025
Sunrise: 5:35am; Sunset: 9:07pm; 2 minutes, 19 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 2:29am; Moonset: 2:13pm, waning gibbous, 38% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for May 21, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             65                     93                     64
Low              42                     25                     39


The Brook
by Alfred, Lord Tennysball

I come  from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
by many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
with here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silver water-break
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

May 21 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Juice Slush Day
• National Memo Day
• National Strawberries and Cream Day
• National Waitstaff Day
• National American Red Cross Founder’s Day
• Emergency Medical Services for Children Day
• International Tea Day

May 21 Word Pun
Sven’s thinking of having his ashes stored in a glass urn; remains to be seen…


May 21 Word Riddle
You cannot keep me until you have given me. What am I?*


May 21 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.

    Twaddle had a hovel,
    Twiddle had a palace;
    Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
    Or he'll think I bear him malice"—
    A sentiment as novel
    As a castor on a chalice.

    Down upon the middle
    Of his legs fell Twaddle
    And astonished Mr. Twiddle,
    Who began to lift his noddle,
    Feed upon the fiddle-
    Faddle flummery, unswaddle
    A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a model.
                            —G.J.


May 21 Etymology Word of the Week
instinct
/IN-stiNG(k)t/ n., an innate, typically fixed pattern of behavior in animals in response to certain stimuli, from early 15th century, "a prompting" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French instinct (circa 1400) or directly from Latin instinctus "instigation, impulse, inspiration," noun use of past participle of instinguere "to incite, impel," from in- "into, in, on, upon" (from Proto-Indo-European root en "in") + stinguere "prick, goad," from Proto-Indo-European steig- "to prick, stick, pierce" (see stick (v.) Meaning "animal faculty of intuitive perception" is from mid-15th century, from notion of "natural prompting." General sense of "natural tendency" is first recorded 1560s.


May 21 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1854 Frederic Mistral, Joseph Roumanille, and five other Provencal poets found Félibrige, a literary and cultural association.
• 1881 American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton.
• 1892 Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera I Pagliacci premieres.
• 1914 Greyhound Bus Company begins in Minnesota.
• 1918 US House of Representatives passes amendment allowing women to vote.
• 1922 Pulitzer prize awarded to Eugene O'Neill for his play Anna Christie.
• 1929 Sergei Prokoviev's ballet Prodigal Son premieres.
• 1932 After flying for 17 hours from Newfoundland, Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, completing the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman .
• 1951 The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition - a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School.
• 1960 Leontyne Price becomes the first African American to sing the lead at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in Aida.
• 2019 Omani author Jokha Alharthi is the first Arabic writer to win the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Celestial Bodies with her translator Marilyn Booth.

May 21 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1471 Albrecht Dürer, German Renaissance painter and printmaker.
• 1633 Joseph de La Barre, French composer.
• 1671 Azzolino Bernardino Della Ciaia, Italian organist and composer.
• 1688 Alexander Pope, English poet.
• 1720 Antonio Corbisiero, Italian Baroque composer.
• 1722 Wilhelm Gottfried Enderle, German composer.
• 1823 Thomas Charles Leeson Rowbotham, Irish artist.
• 1841 Joseph Parry, Welsh composer.
• 1844 Henri Rousseau, French post-impressionist painter.
• 1855 Emile Verhaeren, Belgian poet.
• 1867 Désiré Pâque, Belgian organist, composer.
• 1880 Pablo Luna, Spanish composer.
• 1880 Tudor Arghezi [Ion Nae Theodorescu], Romanian poet and children's author.
• 1888 May Aufderheide, American ragtime composer.
• 1892 John Peale Bishop, American poet.
• 1898 Karel Haba, Czech composer.
• 1901 Suzanne Lilar, Belgian writer.
• 1902 Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-American modernist architect.
• 1903 Manly Wade Wellman, Angolan born American science fiction author.
• 1904 Fats Waller, American jazz organist, piano player, singer and composer.
• 1905 Edward Lockspeiser, British composer.
• 1910 Una Troy, Irish novelist.
• 1913 Gina Bachauer, Greek classical pianist.
• 1916 Harold Robbins, American author.
• 1916 Leonard Manasseh, British architect.
• 1920 James Plunkett, Irish writer.
• 1921 Leona Wood, American surrealist painter and ballet and folk dancer.
• 1924 Robert Parris, American composer.
• 1926 Robert Creeley, American, poet and novelist.
• 1932 Dan Wakefield, American novelist.
• 1932 Gabriele Wohmann, German writer.
• 1938 Urs Widmer, Swiss writer.
• 1939 Heinz Holliger, Swiss composer.
• 1944 Janet Dailey, American Romance author.
• 1947 Jiggs Kalra, Indian food writer.
• 1949 Rosalind Plowright, British mezzo-soprano.
• 1951 Al Franken, US politician (Senate-D-Minnesota 2009-18) comedian, writer.
• 1979 James Clancy Phelan, Australian novelist.

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

• baccate: /BAK-āt/ adj., pulpy throughout like a berry.
• brandis: /BRAN-duhss/ n., a stand for a pot or kettle heated over an open fire; a trivet. In early use also: an andiron.
• hallan: /HAL-uhn/ n., SCOTTISH, a partition wall within a cottage or small house, esp. one meant to block the draught from an exterior door. Also: the interior space formed by this partition.
• jow: /jau̇/, n., the ringing, tolling, or sound of a bell.
• kankedort: /KANG-kuh-dort/ n., MIDDLE ENGLISH, a difficult, embarassing, or awkward situation, a state of suspense, or a critical position.
• makar: /MAK-ər/ n., SCOTTISH, a poet or bard.
• naufrageous: /naw-FRAY-jus/ adj., that is in a state of danger or ruin (as if from shipwreck); threatened.
• nowhen: /NOH-hwen/ adv., at no time; never.
• passulate: /PASS-yoo-layt/ v., to dry (grapes) into raisins.
• tew: /t(y)ü/ n., a state of worried agitation; v., to fuss or worry; to work (leather) by beating or kneading; to prepare for some purpose.

May 21, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
Homes Away from Home
With all the excitement over the new Cabinet going up in Palmville, today Word-Wednesday explores the different words used for such structures. In Minnesota, when one wishes to retreat from home for the weekend or for seasonal adventures, one goes to the cabin: /KAB-ən/ n., a small shelter or house, made of wood and situated in a wild or remote area, from mid-14th century, "small house or habitation," especially one crudely constructed, from Old French cabane "hut, cottage, small house," from Old Provençal cabana, from Late Latin capanna "hut" (source also of Spanish cabana, Italian capanna); a word of doubtful origin. Modern French cabine (18th century), Italian cabino are English loan-words. The meaning "room or partition of a ship" (later especially one set aside for use of officers) is from mid-14th century. Cabin fever is recorded by 1918 in the "need to get out and about" sense; earlier (1820s) it was a term for typhus.

But as JPS will tell you as a native of Wisconsin, our eastern neighbors go on retreats to the cottage: /KÄ-dij/ n., a small simple house, typically one near a lake or beach, from late 14th century, "a cot, a humble habitation," as of a farm-laborer, from Old French cote "hut, cottage" + Anglo-French suffix -age (according to OED the whole probably denotes "the entire property attached to a cote"). Old French cot is probably from Old Norse kot "hut," cognate of Old English cot, cote "cottage, hut," from Proto-Germanic kutan (source also of Middle Dutch cot, Dutch kot). Meaning "small country residence or detached suburban house" (without suggestion of poverty or tenancy) is from 1765. Modern French cottage is a 19th century reborrowing from English. Cottage industry, one that can be done at home, is attested from 1854. Cottage cheese, the U.S. name for a kind of soft, white cheese, is attested from 1831, earliest in reference to Philadelphia.

Here are a few of the words for both cabin and cottage:

CABIN: English, Ewe, Hmong, Myanmar, Shona

Basque: kabina
Catalan: cabina
Corsican: cabina
Czech: chata
Danish: kabine
Dutch: cabine
Finnish: hytti
French: cabine
German: Kabine
Hawaiian: hale ka'a
Icelandic: skála
Irish: cábáin
Italian: cabina
Latin: Cameram
Morse Code: -.- .- -... .. -.
Norwegian: hytte
Polish:    kabina
Portuguese: cabine
Scots Gaelic: caban
Spanish: cabina
Swedish: stuga
Turkish: kabin
Welsh: caban

COTTAGE: Corsican, Frisian, maltese

Basque: tsabola
Catalan: cabana
Czech: chalupa
Danish: sommerhus
Dutch: juisje
Finnish: mökki
French: chalet
German: Hütte
Hmong: tsev
Hungarian: kunyhó
Icelandic: sumarhús
Irish: teachín
Italian: villetta
Morse Code: -.-. --- - - .- --. .
Norwegian: hytte
Polish: domek
Portuguese: cabana
Scottish: bothy
Swedish: stuga
Welsh: bwthyn

Considering the Irish word for cabin, and as the Cabinet construction is not yet complete, the Chairman might with to consider a slight modification of its name to Cábáinet.


From A Year with Rilke, May 21 Entry
Go into Yourself, from Paris, February 17, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet

There is only one thing to do. Go interested yourself. Examine your reason for writing. Discover whether it is rooted in the depths of your heart, and find out whether you would rather die than be forbidden to write. Above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night, have I no choice but to write? Dig deep within for the truest answer, and if this answer is a strong and simple *yes*, then build your life upon this necessity. Your life henceforth, down to its most ordinary and insignificant moment, must prove and reveal this truth.

Rainer Maria Rilke
by Carl Köhler

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.







*Your word.