Word-Wednesday for January 14, 2026

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 14, 2026, the second Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of winter, the second Wednesday of January, and the fourteenth day of the year, with three-hundred fifty-one days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 14, 2026
Cedar Waxwing
Bombycilla cedrorum — zegibanaanishiinh in Anishinaabe — a member of the family Bombycillidae or waxwing family of passerine birds, sports brown, gray, and yellow feathers. Some of the wing feathers have red tips which resemble sealing wax, giving these birds their common name. A year-round native of Wannaska and other parts of North and Central America, pairs breed in open wooded areas in southern Canada, some make the trip to winter in the southern half of the United States, Central America, and the far northwest of South America. Waxwing diets includes cedar cones, fruit, holly berries, and insects. The two common calls of these birds include very high-pitched whistles and buzzy trills about a half second long often, represented as see or sree.

January 14 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 14 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 14, 2026
Sunrise: 8:13am; Sunset: 4:53pm; 2 minutes, 5 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 5:18am; Moonset: 12:51pm, waning crescent, 16% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 14, 2026
                Average            Record              Today
High             12                     37                     37
Low              -7                   -46                    -6

Braggart
by Dorothy Parker

The days will rally, wreathing 
Their crazy tarantelle; 
And you must go on breathing, 
But I'll be safe in hell. 

Like January weather, 
The years will bite and smart, 
And pull your bones together 
To wrap your chattering heart. 

The pretty stuff you're made of 
Will crack and crease and dry. 
The thing you are afraid of 
Will look from every eye. 

You will go faltering after 
The bright, imperious line, 
And split your throat on laughter, 
And burn your eyes with brine. 

You will be frail and musty 
With peering, furtive head, 
Whilst I am young and lusty 
Among the roaring dead.

January 14 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Ratification Day
• National Dress Up Your Pet Day
• National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day
• World Logic Day

January 14 Word Pun
Sven bought an old used car that was made in Prague.
The Czech engine light keeps coming on.


January 14 Word Riddle
What kind of drum does Conun play when facing a paradox?*

a Chairman Joe original

January 14 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
KINE, n. Cows.

    If kine is the plural of cow,
    And the plural of sow is swine,
    Then pumpkins may hang from a vow,
    And coronets rest upon brine.


January 14 Etymology Word of the Week
kiss
/kis/ v., touch with the lips as a sign of love, sexual desire, reverence, or greeting; (of a ball) lightly touch (another ball) in passing; n., a touch with the lips in kissing; a slight touch of a ball against another ball, from Old English cyssan "to touch with the lips" (in respect, reverence, etc.), from Proto-Germanic kussjan (source also of Old Saxon kussian, Old Norse kyssa, Old Frisian kessa, Middle Dutch cussen, Dutch, Old High German kussen, German küssen, Norwegian and Danish kysse, Swedish kyssa), from kuss-, probably ultimately imitative of the sound. Gothic used kukjan. Of two persons, "to reciprocally kiss, to kiss each other", circa 1300. Kissing, as an expression of affection or love, is unknown among many races, and in the history of mankind seems to be a late substitute for the more primitive rubbing of noses, sniffing, and licking. The partial agreement among some words for 'kiss' in some of the IE languages rests only on some common expressive syllables, and is no conclusive evidence that kissing was known in IE times. Carl Darling Buck, "A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages," 1949.


January 14 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1501 Martin Luther enters the University of Erfurt, aged 17.
• 1690 The musical instrument, the clarinet, is invented in Nuremberg, Germany.
• 1785 Wolfgang Mozart completes his String Quartet No. 19 in C (Dissonance quartet), the last of six quartet set dedicated to Joseph Haydn (Op. 10/6, K. 465).
• 1794 Dr. Jesse Bennett performs the first successful Cesarean section operation in the US on his wife, Elizabeth, delivering a baby girl at their home in Edom, Virginia.
• 1878 US Supreme court rules race separation on trains unconstitutional.
• 1900 Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca with libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa premieres.
• 1938 National Society for Legalization of Euthanasia forms.
• 1953 Vaughan William's Sinfonia Antartica premiere.
• 1954 Sandy Wilson's musical The Boy Friend opens at Wyndham's Theatre.
• 1955 Heitor Villa-Lobos' 8th Symphony premieres.
• 1956 American rocker Little Richard releases single Tutti Frutti.
• 1963 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is published.

January 14 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1451 Franchinus Gaffurius, Italian music composer.
• 1566 Angelo Notari, Italian composer.
• 1655 Angelo Predieri, Italian composer.
• 1684 Jean-Baptiste Vanloo, French painter.
• 1722 Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer, German organist and composer.
• 1751 Corona Schröter, German musician.
• 1780 François Joseph Dizi, Belgian composer.
• 1798 Isaac da Costa, Jewish poet.
• 1804 John Park, Scottish composer.
• 1812 Carl Gradener, German composer.
• 1814 Johannes Josephus Viotta, Dutch composer.
• 1817 Harmen Sytstra, Dutch poet.
• 1818 Zacharias Topelius, Finnish historical novelist.
• 1819 Fabio Campana, Italian composer.
• 1834 William Cleaver Francis Robinson, Irish composer.
• 1836 Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter.
• 1839 Emil Bohn, German organist, choral director, composer.
• 1844 Clara Kathleen Rogers, American composer.
• 1850 Jean de Reszke, Polish tenor.
• 1850 Pierre Loti, French novelist.
• 1851 Théophile de Bock, Dutch painter.
• 1857 Alice Pike Barney, American painter.
• 1861 Wilhelm von Polenz, German writer.
• 1868 Anna Maria de Savornin Lohman, author.
• 1874 Thornton W. Burgess, American conservationist and author.
• 1875 Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian theologian and writer.
• 1878 Victor Segalen, French writer.
• 1882 Hendrik Willem van Loon, Dutch-American writer.
• 1886 Hugh Lofting, English writer and illustrator.
• 1889 Vincenzo Davico, Italian composer.
• 1895 George Richard Samways, English children's writer.
• 1896 John do Passos, American novelist.
• 1902 F. C. Terborgh [Reijnier Flaes], Dutch writer.
• 1904 Emily Hahn, American journalist and author.
• 1906 Walter Knape, German conductor and composer.
• 1910 Renier van der Velden, Belgian composer.
• 1911 Anatoly Rybakov, Russian writer.
• 1911 George Amadee Tremblay, Canadian pianist and composer.
• 1911 Helmut Degen, German composer.
• 1913 Tillie Olsen, American writer.
• 1914 Dudley Randall, African-American poet.
• 1916 John Oliver Killens, American writer.
• 1921 Charles Gaupp, German-Dutch painter.
• 1921 Lucy Reed [Dollinger], American jazz vocalist.
• 1921 Mark Lawrence, American pianist.
• 1923 Zlatan Vauda, Slovene composer.
• 1925 Louis Quilico, Canadian baritone.
• 1925 Yukio Mishima, Japanese novelist.
• 1926 Mahasweta Devi, Indian Bengali writer.
• 1927 Zuzana Ruzickova, Czech harpsichordist.
• 1928 Garry Winogrand, American photographer.
• 1928 Gerald Arpino, American dancer and choreographer.
• 1930 Edgar Hovhannisyan, Armenian composer.
• 1931 Juraj Pospíšil, Czech composer.
• 1945 Einar Hakonarson, Icelandic painter.
• 1945 Maina Gielgud, British ballet dancer.
• 1948 (Joseph) "T Bone" Burnett, American musician.
• 1949 Mary Robison, American writer.
• 1951 Tom Wood, Irish photographer.
• 1952 Maureen Dowd, American writer.
• 1952 Sydney Biddle Barrows, American madam and author.
• 1956 Ben Heppner, Canadian tenor.
• 1957 Anchee Min, Chinese writer.
• 1970 Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Irish poet.
• 1983 James Vincent McMorrow, Irish singer-songwriter.

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

• bobance: /BOB-ents/ n., pride, boasting, presumption.
• boule: /bo͞ol/ n., a metal ball used in the French game of boules; a round loaf of crusty bread.
• collocation: /kä-lə-KĀSH-ən/ n., the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance; the action of placing things side by side or in position.
• lurdan: /LUR-duhn/ n., an idle or incompetent person. A lazy and dull individual.
• oche: /Ä-kē/ n., the line behind which darts players stand when throwing.
• paleonoia: /pā-lē-ō-NOI-ə/n., a current anxiety about  bad things that could have happened to you in the past but didn’t. [a Chairman Joe original]
• riverain: /RIV-uh-rayn/ n., a person who or animal which lives on the banks or in the vicinity of a river.
• squiz: /skwɪz/ n., a quick, close look or glance; v., take a quick look or glance.
• tephra: /TEF-rə/ n., rock fragments and particles ejected by a volcanic eruption.
• wede: /VEH-deh/ adj., of a person: ferocious, raging; (later also) mentally unstable; displaying behavior that appears irrational, erratic, or dissociated from reality; mad. Also of an animal: abnormally aggressive, savage.

January 14, 2026 Word-Wednesday Feature
baby
/ˈBĀ-bē/ n., a very young child, especially one newly or recently born, from late 14th century, babi, "infant of either sex," diminutive of babe (q.v.) with -y. The meaning "childish adult person" is from circa 1600. The sense of "youngest of a group" is by 1897. As a term of endearment for one's lover it is attested perhaps as early as 1839, certainly by 1901 (OED writes, "the degree of slanginess in the nineteenth-century examples is not easily determinable"); its popularity perhaps was boosted by baby vamp "a popular girl", student slang from circa 1922. In this babiest month of 2026, here are a few baby-words from some familiar writers:

A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.

Carl Sandburg

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out; but it catches fire again every time a child is born. 

George Bernard Shaw

A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities.

Henry Ward Beecher

The babe in arms is a channel through which the energies we call fate, love, and reason visibly stream.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The human baby, the human being, is a mosaic of animal and angel.

Jacob Bronowski

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

Mark Twain

Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things—wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.

Eda J. LeShan

Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.

Lewis Mumford

A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ronald Knox

They lie flat on their noses at first in what appears to be a drunken slumber, then flat on their backs kicking and screaming, demanding impossibilities in a foreign language.

Katherine Anne Porter

Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world’s worst roommate, like having Janis Joplin with a bad hangover and PMS come to stay with you.

Anne Lamott

A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three short years, no baby is competent to be a joy “forever.”

Mark Twain

The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.

William James

But for the lack of language, a baby has many sad stories to tell.

Hart Pomerantz

Everyone knows that by far the happiest and universally enjoyable age of man is the first. What is there about babies which makes us hug and kiss and fondle them, so that even an enemy would give them help at that age?

Desiderius Erasmus

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are.

Louisa May Alcott

Out of the mouths of babes comes a lot of what they should have swallowed. 

Franklin P. Jones

Now the thing about having a baby—and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this—is that thereafter you have it. 

Jean Kerr

Having a baby is like trying to push a grand piano through a transom.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

Paul Reiser

I admit he’s a darling, but babies are an acquired taste.

Percy White

Baby caca is like Kryptonite to a father. Even the dog says, “You don’t rub his face in it.”

Robin Williams

From A Year with Rilke, January 14 Entry
What Lies Ahead, from Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904, Letters to a Young Poet

Nothing alien happens to us, but only what has long been our own. We have already had to rethink so many concepts about motion; now we must also begin to learn that what we call fate comes not from outside us but from within. . . . Just as for so long we were mistaken about the movement of the sun, we are still mistaken about what lies ahead of us in time.

A Sunbeam
by Leonid Pasternak

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 Conun drum.