Word-Wednesday for April 8, 2026

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 8, 2026, the fourteenth Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of spring, the second Wednesday of April, and the ninety-eighth day of the year, with two-hundred sixty-seven days remaining.

Wannaska Phenology Update for April 8, 2026
Cowbird
Molothrus armenti — asiginaak, in Anishinaabe — returns to Wannaska, one of our stranger migrants. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek mōlos, meaning "struggle" or "battle", with thrōskō, meaning "to sire" or "to impregnate"; the English name "cowbird", first recorded in 1839, refers to this species often being seen near cattle. Both monikers relate to different features of cowbird strangeness. First, cowbirds reproduce by laying their eggs in other birds' nests. Female cowbirds observe a potential host bird laying its eggs, and when the nest is left momentarily unattended, the cowbird lays its own egg in it. The female cowbird may continue to observe this nest after laying eggs. Some bird species have evolved the ability to detect such parasitic eggs, and may reject them by pushing them out of their nests, but female cowbirds have been observed to attack and destroy the remaining eggs of such birds in retaliation, as suggested by the Mafia hypothesis. Second, cowbirds eat mostly insects and seeds, so cowbirds follow ungulates to catch insects stirred up by the larger animals when grazing.

April 8 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


April 8 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for April 8, 2026
Sunrise: 6:47am; Sunset: 8:04pm; 3 minutes, 31 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 2:40am; Moonset: 9:50am, waning gibbous, 66% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for April 8, 2026
                Average            Record              Today
High             48                     76                     40
Low              26                      0                      27

General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer
 

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,


The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,


And bathed every veyne in swich licóur


Of which vertú engendred is the flour;


Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth


Inspired hath in every holt and heeth


The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne


Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,


And smale foweles maken melodye,


That slepen al the nyght with open ye,


So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,


Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,


And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,


To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;


And specially, from every shires ende


Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,


The hooly blisful martir for to seke,


That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

April 8 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Empanada Day
• Nationa Zoo Lovers Day
• National All Is Ours Day
• National Chicken Little Awareness Day

April 8 Word Pun
Sven stayed up all night wondering where the sun went. Then it dawned on him.


April 8 Word Riddle
What do you call a pair of shoes made from bananas?*


April 8 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.


April 8 Etymology Word of the Week
king
/kiNG/ n., the male ruler of an independent state, especially one who inherits the position by right of birth, from a late Old English contraction of cyning "king, ruler" (also used as a title), from Proto-Germanic kuningaz (source also of Dutch koning, Old Norse konungr, Danish konge, Old Saxon and Old High German kuning, Middle High German künic, German König).

This is of uncertain origin. It is possibly related to Old English cynn "family, race" (see kin), making a king originally a "leader of the people." Or perhaps it is from a related prehistoric Germanic word meaning "noble birth," making a king etymologically "one who descended from noble birth" (or "the descendant of a divine race"). The sociological and ideological implications render this a topic of much debate. "The exact notional relation of king with kin is undetermined, but the etymological relation is hardly to be doubted" [Century Dictionary].

General Germanic, but not attested in Gothic, where þiudans (cognate with Old English þeoden "chief of a tribe, ruler, prince, king") was used. Finnish kuningas "king," Old Church Slavonic kunegu "prince" (Russian knyaz, Bohemian knez), Lithuanian kunigas "clergyman" are forms of this word taken from Germanic. Meaning "one who has superiority in a certain field or class" is from late 14th century.

    As leon is the king of bestes. [John Gower, "Confessio Amantis," 1390] 

In Old English, used for chiefs of Anglian and Saxon tribes or clans, of the heads of states they founded, and of the British and Danish chiefs they fought. The word acquired a more imposing quality with the rise of European nation-states, but then it was applied to tribal chiefs in Africa, Asia, North America. The chess piece is so called from circa 1400; the playing card from 1560s; the use in checkers/draughts is first recorded 1820. Three Kings for the Biblical Wise Men is from circa 1200.


April 8 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1341 Petrarch crowned a poet.
• 1766 First fire escape is patented: a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.
• 1781 Premiere of Mozart's Violin Sonata No. 27 in G major.
• 1820 The famous ancient Greek statue Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos .
• 1869 American Museum of Natural History opens in New York City.
• 1876 Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda premieres.
• 1916 Norway approves active and passive female suffrage.
• 1931 Dmitri Shostakovich's ballet The Arrow premieres.
• 1935 Béla Bartók's 5th String Quartet premieres.
• 1942 Arnold Schoenberg & Tudor's ballet Pillar of Fire premieres.
• 2012 German writer Günter Grass labelled "persona non grata" by Israeli internal affairs minister Eli Yishai, due to his poem "What Must Be Said".

What Must Be Said
by Günter Grass

Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
What clearly is and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people —
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation —
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.

Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no inspection is available?

The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force —  the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
Its very own crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But as a fear wishes to be conclusive,
I say what must be said.

Why though have I stayed silent until now?
Because I thought my origin,
Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged
Kept the state of Israel, to which I am bound 

And wish to stay bound,
From accepting this fact as pronounced truth.

Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we —  as Germans burdened enough —
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
That they may prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
By the governments of both countries.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
And also us, to be helped.

April 8 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 623 BCE Siddhartha Gautama.
• 811 Muhammad al-Jawad, descendant of Islamic prophet Muhammad, 9th Shia Imam, born in Medina, Abbasid Caliphate.
• 1533 Claudio Merulo, Italian organist and composer.
• 1582 Phineas Fletcher, English poet.
• 1605 Louis de Vadder, Flemish painter.
• 1631 Cornelis de Heem, Dutch painter.
• 1641 William Wycherley, English dramatist and playwright.
• 1692 Giuseppe Tartini, Venetian Baroque composer.
• 1695 Johann Christian Gunther, German poet.
• 1697 Pierre Prowo, German composer.
• 1708 Georg Zarth, Bohemian composer.
• 1756 Joseph Gehot, Belgian composer.
• 1776 Thaddäus Weigl, German-Austrian composer.
• 1798 Dionysios Solomos, Greek poet.
• 1816 Frederic William Burton, Irish painter.
• 1842 Elizabeth Bacon Custer, American author.
• 1843 Asger Hamerik [Hammerich], Danish composer.
• 1871 Clarence Hudson White, American photographer.
• 1878 Rudolf Nelson, German composer.
• 1879 Robert Haven Schauffler Czech writer.
• 1881 Fernand Lamy, French composer.
• 1882 Lulu McConnell, American vaudeville, radio, and television comedienne.
• 1885 Dimitrios Levidis, Greek composer.
• 1886 Margaret Ayer Barnes, American playwright and writer.
• 1888 Victor Schertzinger, American composer.
• 1893 Henri Puvrez, Belgian sculptor.
• 1893 Jan Jelínek, Czech writer.
• 1895 Sigurdur Thordarson, Icelandic composer.
• 1896 Karl Hermann Pillney, Austrian composer.
• 1897 Herbert Eimert, German composer.
• 1904 John Antill, Australian composer.
• 1905 Hans Scherfig, Danish artist.
• 1905 Helen Joseph, South African anti-apartheid activist and writer.
• 1906 Raoul Jobin, French Canadian operatic tenor.
• 1909 Olavi Pesonen, Finnish composer.
• 1911 Emil Mihai Cioran, Romanian born writer.
• 1918 Glendon Swarthout, American novelist.
• 1921 Jan Novák, Czech classical composer and contemporary Latin poet.
• 1926 Henry N. Cobb, American architect.
• 1926 Jürgen Moltmann, German writer.
• 1933 Jaroslav Smolka, Czech composer.
• 1934 Kisho Kurokawa, Japanese architect.
• 1942 Eduard Visser, Dutch writer.
• 1944 Christoph Hein, German writer.
• 1955 Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist.
• 1960 Greg Iles, German-American novelist.
• 1974 Nnedi Okorafor, Nigerian American writer.

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

• chancery: /CHAN-(t)s(ə)-rē/ n., a court of equity.
• dentifrice: /DEN-(t)ə-frəs/ n., a paste or powder for cleaning the teeth.
• effrenate: /eh-FRIH-nayt/ adj., unbridled, unrestrained, unruly, or excessively wild.
• futz: /fəts/ v., to occupy oneself in an ineffectual or trifling way; to mess about, to waste time; to fiddle or tinker with something./ v., to occupy oneself in an ineffectual or trifling way; to mess about, to waste time; to fiddle or tinker with something.
• ilka: /IL-kə/ adj., each, every.
• lethobenthos: /leth-oh-BEN-thos/ n., the habit of forgetting how important someone is to you until you see them in person again.
• quinquennium: /kwiNG-KWE-nē-əm/ n., a period of five years.
• snogging: /SNAH-ging/ n., passionate kissing or caressing; kissing using tongues.
• tranche: /tran(t)SH/ n., a portion of something, especially money.
• ziggurat: /ZIG-ə-rat/n., (in ancient Mesopotamia) a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9).

April 8, 2026 Word-Wednesday Feature
Chaucer's Words
Inspired by the opening words of Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, Word-Wednesday staff began a search for the words that Chaucer was the first to use, and we weren't disappointed.

The English words first found in Chaucer's writings are a set of roughly 2,000 words credited to Chaucer as being the first use found in existing manuscripts. He wasn't the first person to introduce these words into English, where he introduced them in one of his many extensive works from 1374 - 1400. Many of Chaucer's special manuscript words from the 14th century are used today:

absent, accident, add, agree, bagpipe, border, box, cinnamon, desk, digestion, dishonest, examination, finally, flute, funeral, galaxy, horizon, infect, ingot, latitude, laxative, miscarry, nod, obscure, observe, outrageous, perpendicular, Persian, princess, resolve, rumor, scissors, session, snort, superstitious, theatre, trench, universe, utility, vacation, Valentine, veal, village, vulgar, wallet, and wildness.

We can credit Chaucer for magic, fart, haunch-bone, and whistling in The Miller's Tale, alone. The Wife of Bath's Tale gave us annex, ascendant, ba, bum, bumble, caterwaul, chose, disfigure, Ecclesiast, inclination, lure, Martian, peace, preamble, preambulation, resemblance, reveller, sip, spaniel, squire, stubborn, taur, and vacation. The Friar's Tale: approver, bribe, bribery, determinate, flattering. The Knight's Tale?

breastplate, buckle, cerrial, Circe, citrine, clottered, collared, execute, expel, expulsive, feminie, fluttery, funeral, gigge, howl, huntress, intellect, kemp, lacing, laxative, Lucina, melancholic, menacing, mishap, mortal, mover, murmur, murmuring, muzzle, narcotic, nymph, obsequy, obstacle, opposite, oyez, party, perturb, pharmacy, plain, portraiture, possibility, princess, progression, refuge, renting, returning, save, saving, shouting, smiler, strangle, strangling, tester, thoroughfare, turret, vanishing, variation, vital, vomit, whippletree, winged.

To name but a few...


From A Year with Rilke, April 8 Entry
How to Bloom, from Uncollected Prams

The almond trees in bloom: all we can accomplish here is to ever know ourselves in our earthly appearance.

I endlessly marvel at you, blissful ones—at your demeanor, the way you bear your vanishing adornment with timeless purpose. Ah, to understand how to bloom: then would the heart be carried beyond all milder dangers, to be consoled in the great one.

Almond Tree in Blossom
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.






*slippers.