The Artemis 1 rocket, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, is scheduled to splash down tomorrow after its 25-day mission. NASA’s ultimate goal is to land the first humans on the moon in the 21st century, including the first woman and first person of color, and to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
I’m over the moon about moon jokes — and I don’t think it’s just a phase:
Have you ever dined at the restaurant on the moon? The food is great, but the place doesn’t have any atmosphere.
Astronomers got tired of watching the moon go around the earth every 24 hours. They decided to call it a day.
How does the Man in the Moon cut his hair? Eclipse it.
For the chronologically gifted among us: Who was the first woman to land on the moon? Alice Kramden.
To the moon and back, I love the origins of moon words. Have you ever wondered why the words lunatic and lunar begin with the same four letters? Turns out that lunatic derives from luna, Latin for “moon,” which in its fullness is said to render us daft — moonstruck and loony. An insect on the moon is a lunar tick.
We keep time with the moon. Monday began as Old English for “moon day,” and month, again from Old English, is the duration between full moons, the time it takes our lunar satellite to complete its voyage around our planet.
A honeymoon is an early harmony in any relationship, especially marriage. Here we come to the juncture of “honey” and the long-ago way of saying “month”: moon. The first month of marriage is often the sweetest, but just when the moon is full and bright, it begins to wane as can sadly happen with matrimony.
The opportunity to read an explanation about the phrase once in a blue moon comes along once in a blue moon, when pigs fly and hell freezes over. A blue moon is the second full moon in a single month, a phenomenon that occurs, well, once in a blue moon. These bonus full moons present themselves on average once every 2.7 years. The expression has nothing to do with the actual color of the moon, but whenever certain natural conditions align, such as volcanic eruptions or titanic fires sending particles into the atmosphere, the moon can actually appear to be tinged with blue.
Some of us distill or drink moonshine (“illegal liquor”) or babble moonshine (“nonsense”). Some of us moonlight with a second job that we perform at night. Others of us moon over a desired lover. Then there’s that other verb to moon. I’ll leave you to figure out how that act got its name.
Moving right along to another body part, that whitish crescent at the base of each of your fingernails (none on your toenails) actually has a name — lunule or lunula, French-Latin for “little moon.”
***
Chanukah begins on December 19. Should the Jewish holiday be written, sounded, and spelled as Hanukkah, the most popular version, partly because “Happy Hanukkah” is alliterative, or Chanukah, the second most popular?
The Hebrew word for the festival of lights, Hanukkah/Chanukah, consists of five Hebrew characters opening with the consonant het (chet), the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet: חנוכה. This letter is not the same as the English letter h, as in home or ch, as in child). It’s a Hebrew throaty, guttural sound, similar to the surname of Johann Sebastian Bach, and has no precise equivalent in English. Still, I believe that the spelling Chanukah is closer to the chet sound in Hebrew and Yiddish. That’s because I have more chutzpa than hutzpa.
***
A rhopalic is a sentence in which each word is progressively one letter or one syllable longer than its predecessor. This word derives from the Greek rhopalos, for a club or cudgel, thicker toward one end than the other.
Here’s my rhopalic sentence, which expands one syllable at a time: I never totally misinterpret administrative, idiosyncratic, uncategorizable, overintellectualized deinstitutionalization.
***
On Tuesday, December 13, 11:30 am, at the University Community Branch Library, 4155 Governor Drive, 858 552 1635. I’ll be offering “A Treasury of Christmas Humor.” Admission is free and worth every penny. I’d love to meet you there.