The word of the day1 for February 20, 2007 is “shrive” — transitive verb. 1 : to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to. 2 : to free from guilt. intransitive verb, archaic : to confess one's sins especially to a priest.
Happy Mardi Gras or Carnivale or Shrove Tuesday. They all describe the same day, 41 days, excluding Sundays, before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. For Christians, tomorrow is the first day of Lent.
It makes sense, in a way that one should fast for the last of February and all of March. The beast(s) one salted away in October is scraped to the bones. The spring vegetables haven’t poked their noses out of the ground. One is down to roots and nuts and the occasionally imprudent rabbit or squirrel. So make a virtue of necessity: starve yourself intentionally and declare it good for your soul. It’s always easier to comply when you can say, “Because God wants it that way.”
The quote2 for today is from Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), Speech in the House of Commons on Denmark and Germany, vote of censure, July 4, 1864, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, vol. 176, col. 743:
“The Conference lasted six weeks. It wasted six weeks. It lasted as long as a Carnival, and, like a Carnival, it was an affair of masks and mystification. Our Ministers went to it as men in distressed circumstances go to a place of amusement—to while away the time, with a consciousness of impending failure.”
;^)
1 The definition is from either Merriam-Webster Online, 10th Edition or TheAmerican Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition and is used by permission.
2 The quote is from either Bartleby: Great Books on Line or The Quotation Pages and is used by permission.
P.S.: Comments and word requests are welcome.
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