Word-Wednesday for November 12, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 12, 2025, the twenty-second Wednesday of the year, the eighth Wednesday of fall, the second Wednesday of November, and the three-hundred sixteenth day of the year, with forty-nine days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for November 12, 2025
Wigeons Away!
The American wigeon (Mareca americana), also known as the baldpate, is a species of dabbling duck found in Wannaska during its breeding season, but now its headed south to Mexico for the winter. The Anishinaable word for American wigeon is Waabitigwewishiip, for the white stripe or patch on its head, and where the general Anishinaabe word for "duck" is zhiishiip. This white patch gives the wigeon its other common name, baldpate (pate is another word for head). The breeding male (drake) is a striking bird with a mask of green feathers around its eyes and a cream-colored cap running from the crown of his head to his bill. The American wigeon is a noisy species, and in the field can often be identified by its distinctive calls. Drakes produce a three-note whistle, while hens emit hoarse grunts and quacks. The male whistle makes a wheezy whoee-whoe-whoe, whereas the female has a low growl qua-ack.

November 12 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


November 12 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for November 12, 2025
Sunrise: 7:29am; Sunset: 4:48pm; 2 minutes, 51 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 11:53pm; Moonset: 2:01pm, waning gibbous, 46% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for November 12, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             34                     59                     43
Low              19                    -15                      29

When the Year Grows Old
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget—
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old —
October — November —
How she disliked the cold!

November 12 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National French Dip Day
• National Chicken Soup for the Soul Day
• National Pizza with the Work Except Anchovies Day
• World Pneumonia Day
• Feast Day of Cumméne Fota
• Feast Day of Machar

November 12 Word Pun

Sven started investing in stocks: beef, chicken, and vegetable.

He hopes, one day, to become a bouillonaire.

November 12 Word Riddle

I can be driven, but have no wheels.
I can be sliced, but stay whole.

What am I?*

November 12 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
DANGER, n.
    A savage beast which, when it sleeps,
    Man girds at and despises,
    But takes himself away by leaps
    And bounds when it arises.
                —Ambat Delaso


November 12 Etymology Word of the Week
polka
/ˈpō(l)-kə/ n., a lively dance of Bohemian origin in duple time, originating in Bohemia, 1844, from French polka, German Polka, probably from Czech polka, the dance, literally "Polish woman" (Polish Polka), fem. of Polak "a Pole" (see Pole). The word might also be an alteration of Czech pulka "half," for the half-steps of Bohemian peasant dances. Or it could be a merger of the two. The dance was in vogue first in Prague, 1835; it reached London by the spring of 1842. 


November 12 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1775 General Washington forbids recruiting officers from enlisting black troops.
• 1799 Andrew Ellicott makes the first known record of a meteor shower observation in the U.S, from a ship off the coast of Florida Keys.
• 1833 The great Leonid Meteor shower recorded.
• 1859 Jules Leotard performs the first flying trapeze circus act in Paris; he also designs the garment that bears his name.
• 1880 Best-selling American novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by soldier Lew Wallace is published.
• 1890 Mabel Loomis Todd publishes the first edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson.
• 1894 Lawrence Hargrave, Australian aeronautical pioneer and inventor of the box kite, linked four huge box kites together and flew - but remained attached to the ground by piano wire.
• 1931 Jean Sibelius and Ashton's ballet Lady of Shalott premieres.
• 1933 Hugh Gray takes the first known photo of the so-called Loch Ness monster.
• 1936 Nobel Prize for literature awarded to American playwright Eugene O'Neill.
• 1956 The largest observed iceberg, 208 by 60 miles, is first sighted.
• 1965 Mad Dog Vachon beats Crusher in Denver, to become NWA champ.
• 1973 Dmitri Shostakovich's 14th String Quartet premieres.
• 1974 A salmon is discovered in the River Thames, England, for the first time since 1833.

November 12 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1493 Bartolomeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor.
• 1651 Juana Ines de La Cruz, Mexican poet.
• 1676 Giovanni Antonio Pollarolo, Italian composer.
• 1757 Jacobus Bellamy [Zelandus], Dutch poet.
• 1817 Carlo Pedrotti, Italian composer.
• 1817 Martin Gustav Nottebohm, German composer.
• 1833 Alexander Borodin, Russian chemist and composer.
• 1840 Auguste Rodin, French sculptor.
• 1844 Octave Fouqué, French pianist and composer.
• 1853 Oskar Panizza, German writer.
• 1858 Alexis Contant, Canadian pianist, organist and composer.
• 1866 Stanislav Sucharda, Czech sculptor.
• 1869 Dorothea Conyersm, Irish novelist.
• 1881 Olev Siinmaa, Estonian 'Functionalist' architect.
• 1886 Ben Travers, British playwright.
• 1889 DeWitt Wallace, American publisher who founded Readers Digest, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
• 1897 Karl Marx, German composer and conductor.
• 1898 A.J.D. van Oosten, Dutch poet and author.
• 1905 Yevgeny Brusilovsky, Soviet composer.
• 1906 (Booker T. Washington) "Bukka" White, American country and Delta blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter.
• 1908 Hans Werner Richter, German author.
• 1911 Luc Estang [Lucien Bastard], French writer.
• 1911 Pennar Davies, Welsh poet.
• 1915 Roland Barthes, French writer.
• 1916 Jean Papineau-Couture, Canadian composer.
• 1921 Robert Fleming, Canadian composer.
• 1923 Alirio Díaz, Venezuelan guitarist, composer.
• 1924 Sam Jones, American jazz double bassist.
• 1925 Stanislav Kolíbal, Czech sculptor.
• 1929 Michael Ende, German fantasy and children's writer.
• 1930 (Antonia) "Tonke" Dragt, Dutch children's author.
• 1939 Lucia Popp [Poppová], Slovakian operatic soprano.
• 1941 Jenny McLeod, New Zealand composer.
• 1944 (Johan) "Johnny" van Doorn, Dutch writer, poet.
• 1945 Michael Bishop, American science fiction author.
• 1962 Naomi Wolf, American author.
• 1962 Neal Shusterman, American author.
• 1963 Damon Galgut, South African playwright and writer.
• 1973 Mayte Garcia, American dancer.
• 1980 Hynek Martinec, Czech painter.

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

• baglama: /bah-LAH-muh/ n., a long-necked lute, with a pear-shaped body, typically having seven strings arranged in three courses, and movable frets.
• baile: /BIGH-lay/ n., a social gathering for dancing; a venue where dances are held.
• braw: brô/ adj., SCOTTISH, fine.
• chintz: /CHin(t)s/ n., printed multicolored cotton fabric with a glazed finish, used especially for curtains and upholstery.
• craquelin: /KRACK-uh-luhn/ n., any of various kinds of bread, cake, or biscuit with a crisp or crunchy texture; a light sweet brioche studded with sugar pieces, typically associated with Belgian baking.
• epulation: /ep-yoo-LAY-shun/ n., a lavish banquet, feasting, or the act of feasting, often with a hint of excess or ritual pomp.
• hubble: /HUB-uhl/ n., a rut or bump on a road, etc.; esp. one that is caused by the freezing of churned mud.
• panicle: /PA-ni-kəl/ n., a pyramidal loosely branched flower cluster.
• shwmae: /shuh-MY/ interj., WELSH, used as a greeting; "hello", "hi".
• stob: /stäb/ n., a broken branch or a stump.

November 12 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
six seven
Dictionary.com named 6 7 its 2025 Word-of-the-Year. That's right — not the word, sixty-seven, but the number. Although Dictionary.com noted that their word-of-the-year is an example of "brainrot slang", reflecting how modern language is driven by shared experience and humor rather than concrete meaning, we here at Word-Wednesday question the choice of word-of-the-year by popularity alone.

In Mathematics, 67 finds some redemption as the 19th prime number, only divisible by one and itself. Also a Chen prime (an irregular prime), a lucky prime, and a Heegner number, 67 is also the sum of five consecutive primes (7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19). Dialing *67 before a phone number temporarily hides the caller ID from the recipient's phone, causing it to display as "Private" or "Blocked". But these numerical characteristics hardly merit word-of-the-year status.

The 67 slang originated from the drill rap song Doot Doot (6 7), in which American rapper, Skrilla raps, "... I know he dyin' (oh my, oh my God) 6-7, I just bipped right on the highway (Bip, bip)" as the beat drops (full lyrics below). The meaning of the number in the song remains ambiguous, and Skrilla himself has stated, "I never put an actual meaning on it and I still would not want to." Some fans have connected it to 67th Street in Skrilla's hometown of Philadelphia, or to 67th Street in Chicago, depending on from whence those fans might hail.  Linguist and African-American English expert Taylor Jones has speculated that it may refer to "10-67", the police radio code used to notify of a death, which aligns with the song's lyrical descriptions of gun violence and Jones' interpretation that the line depicts the narrator playing innocent during a traffic stop.

The lyrics actually reveal an interesting and actual word: bip. The term "bip" has different meanings in rap depending on the U.S. region, primarily referring to car break-ins in the Bay Area and illicit transactions or general "smooth driving" in Baltimore. Skrilla just happens to be a Baltimorean. In Baltimore, "bipping" has a different set of meanings: (a) it refers to conducting illicit transactions (like drug dealing) or smoothly driving a car, often while engaging in those transactions; (b) it refers to a piece of property someone owns, most often a gun; (c) "Getting bipped up" is also used to mean getting a fresh haircut. On the West Coast — San Francisco Bay Area — "bipping" (or being "bipped") is slang for a car break-in or smash-and-grab theft. The term reportedly originated because thieves would use pieces of ceramic spark plugs to quietly shatter vehicle windows. The frequency of these incidents has led locals to refer to San Francisco as "Bip City," and the term has appeared in local rap music since the 1990s. 

So, Word-Wednesday will report on other dictionary words-of-the-year in a forthcoming edition of Wannaskan Almanac. Until then, skibidi toilet.

Doot Doot (6 7)
by Skrilla

Yeah, it's Skrilla, yeah, it's Skrilla
Yeah, it's Skrilla, yeah, it's Skrilla
Yeah, it's me
Shades on, I'm Boul Wit Da Glasses
Bro say er 'cause he a savage
So many dead opps, so many ashes (brrt)
You ain't catch that, I can't pass this (come here)
Shooter stay strapped, I don't need mine
Bro put belt right to they behind
The way that switch brrt, I know he dyin' (oh my, oh my God)
6-7, I just bipped right on the highway (bip, bip)
Skrrt, uh (bip, bip, bip)
I just bipped right on the highway
Trackhawk, mh, sittin' in the driveway (skrrt)
Uh, pull up, doot-doot, doo-doo-doo
Doot, doo-doo, doo-doo, doot
Dump truck, baby shark, doot, doo-doo-doo
I popped the Perc' and popped the blue
I geek-geek like a custy too
Say it in rap, bro, we can smack out (huh?)
Pull up clean in my white tee, rollin' off a honey too (huh?)
Diamonds VV, straight from Lex
And I got a custom pendant waitin', wait 'til when you see that, ooh
Pull up back to back, matte black Track', I just bipped it, nyoom (back to back)
Throw some D's up on that b*tch like Rich Boy
Hurricane, hey, bay-bay-bay-bay
Hurricane my Chris boy (hey-bay-bay)
Maison Margiel', I'm forever gon' drip, boy (hey-bay-bay)
Send my shooter on a hit, boy (brrt)
I'll middle-man a whole body (frr)
Straight thuggin', free Blick, fightin' triple homi' (frr)
Take a four, so I just yack
I think 12 inside a Scat
Swapped the VIN and got it wrapped (huh?)
Bitch, we bippin' overnight (yeah)
Shades on, I'm Boul Wit Da Glasses (yeah)
Bro say er 'cause he a savage (yeah)
So many dead opps, so many ashes (yeah)
You ain't catch that, I can't pass this
Shooter stay strapped, I don't need mine
Bro put belt right to they behind (come here)
The way that switch brrt, I know he dyin' (get him)
6-7, I just bipped right on the highway (damn)
Skrrt, uh (oh my God)
I just bipped right on the highway
Trackhawk, mm, sittin' in the driveway
Yeah, pull up, doot-doot, doo-doo-doo (oh my, oh my God)

From A Year with Rilke, November 12 Entry
The Voices, from Book of Images

The rich and the happy can choose to keep silent,
no need to bid for attention.
But the desperate must reveal themselves,
must say: I am blind
or: I am going blind
or: It's not good for me here on Earth
or: My child is sick
or: I am not holding it together...

But when is that really enough?
So, lest people pass them by like objects,
sometimes they sing.

And sometimes their songs are beautiful.

Orphan Man in Sunday Clothes with an Eye Patch
by Vincent van Gogh

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.






*A golf ball.