Oddity of the Week: Can You Spell Punxsutawney?
Created | Updated Feb 3, 2013
It's that time of year again – time to prophesy the weather. Will it ever work?
Can You Spell Punxsutawney?
We knew you could. Ever since Bill Murray made that movie1, everybody and his kid brother knows about Groundhog Day, the annual event held on Gobbler's Knob. What they probably don't know, however, is that it's really an old tradition involving Pennsylvania Dutch farmers and the German cultural tradition of Bauernweisheiten, or farmer's wisdom. According to which, if the groundhog, or Grundsau, sees his shadow on the cross-quarter day (2 February), bad winter weather will be prolonged.
By now, we know whether Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow. At least officially. All the other wannabe official groundhogs, including Raleigh, North Carolina's Sit Walter Wally, have had their say, as well. Whether they help chasr the snow away is questionable, but they help chase the winter blues away. And they're way cute.
A groundhog is a rodent of the family Sciuridae. It is also known as a whistle-pig, a land-beaver, a marmot, a Murmeltier, or a woodchuck.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck,
If a woodchuck would chuck wood?
I dunno. But then, I don't know when spring will come, either.
