Michael read me a story tonight by Kate DiCamillo and Jon Scieszka, "Your Question for Author Here," that mentions a "waxing gibbous moon." That's a phrase I have read, but I never knew what it meant or how to pronounce it (whether the "g" is hard or soft), so we looked it up and read the following:
Have you ever heard the term “gibbous moon”, and wondered what it means? A gibbous moon is one of the phases of the Moon, when the size of the illuminated portion is greater than half but not a full Moon.
The period between a first quarter moon and a full moon is known as a waxing gibbous moon, because the illuminated region of the Moon is increasing from day to day. After it becomes a full moon, but hasn’t reached the last quarter, the Moon is called a waning gibbous moon.
Since the calendar says that last night's moon was last quarter, our moon tonight will be "waxing gibbous!"
As for the pronunciation, the answer to that question is in the following haiku that I wrote when I couldn't sleep:
the moon is gibbous
with a "g" like great and good
glorious and gift
1 comment:
There are no stupid questions. Thank you for answering this one.
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