The first Wacky Wednesday of February is an interesting one. We are still trekking into the world of old English insults. Our first word of the day is Smell-feast. This refers to someone who turns up uninvited at a meal or party and expects to be fed. The next word is Smellfungus and it has a long backstory to how it came to be. It refers to someone who always finds fault in the places they visit. Below is the long backstory.
“When Laurence Sterne (author of “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy”) met the Scottish writer Tobias Smollett (author of “The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle”) in Italy in 1764, he was amazed by how critical Smollett was of all the places he had visited. Smollett returned home and published his “Travels Through France and Italy” in 1766, and in response Sterne published his “Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy” two years later. Part-novel, part-travelogue, Sterne’s book featured a grumblingly quarrelsome character called Smelfungus, who was modeled on Smollett. The name soon came to be used of any buzz-killing faultfinder.”
We have a few interesting holidays. Today is National Carrot Cake Day and this is my favorite kind of cake which makes this a win for me. It is also National Women Physicians Day, celebrated women in medicine and the birthday of Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849. Today is National Missing Persons Day. About 2,300 people are reported missing every day in the United States. And the saddest part of the day, it’s The Day the Music Died.
On February 3, 1959, there was an airplane accident near Clear Lake, Iowa taking the lives of pilot Roger Peterson, 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 17-year-old Richie Valens, and 28-year-old J.P. Richardson, aka: “The Big Bopper.” The phrase The Day the Music Died was first mentioned in Don McLean’s song “American Pie” in 1971.
James Pack 