Word-Wednesday for July 15, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, July 15, 2020, the 29th Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of summer, and the 197th day of the year, with 169 days remaining. Brought to you by Eau de Pepé, available only from SvengalinunculabUla Enterprises, LTD.

Eau de Pepé is the ultimate in social distancing toiletries for discerning Wannaskan Almanac readers, be they female or otherwise. Carefully extracted from that anal glands of certified Palmville Township Mephitis mephitis by Wannaska's own Sven and Ula, judicious Eau de Pepé application permits one to bathe or shower on a daily basis while keeping others socially distanced on those occasional trips to downtown Wannaska, Roseau, or Warroad for your essential needs.


Wannaska Nature Update for July 15, 2020
We have blueberries!

Nordhem Lunch: Closed


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 15, 2020
Sunrise: 5:36am; Sunset: 9:21pm; 1 minutes, 58 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 1:51am; Moonset: 4:43pm, waning crescent
For those of you with a low horizon, look for comet NEOWISE just at sunset to the northwest.

Temperature Almanac for July 15, 2020
                Average             Record             Today
High             78                     97                     80
Low              57                     35                     61


July 15 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Give Something Away Day
• National I Love Horses Day
• National Tapioca Pudding Day
• National Pet Fire Safety Day
• National Gummi Worm Day

July 15 Word Riddle
If you moved every letter in the word cheer the same number of spaces forward in the alphabet, you get another word with a related meaning. How many spaces must each letter move, and what is that new word?*


July 15 Pun
Picking up on Mr. Hot CoCo’s COVID-10 covacations suggestions yesterday, here are some word-travel considerations. I’ve been to a lot of places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Oxford Dictionary and other travelogues insist that you can’t go alone; you have to be in Cahoots with someone. I've also never been in Cognito, either. Not in Kansas, Wannaska, or anywhere else. Merriam-Webster says no one recognizes you there. I have, however, been in Sane, and I can highly recommend it. Actually, I've made several trips. They don't have an airport, so you have to be driven there.


July 15 Roseau Times-Region Advertisement:
Autopsy Party at LifeCare this Saturday, Open Mike Night.


July 15 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 971 Saint Swithun is reburied inside Winchester Cathedral (against his wishes), whereby a terrible storm proceeds to rain for 40 days and nights.
• 1799 The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egypt.
• 1949 Czech tennis stars Jaroslav Drobny and Vladimir Cernik defect to US.
• 1960 Chubby Checker releases his version of The Twist, Chairman Joe, 13 years old.

July 15 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1606 Rembrandt van Rijn.
• 1638 Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani.
• 1700 Johann Christoph Richter, German composer.
• 1796 Thomas Bulfinch, mythologist.
• 1825 Rooster Cogburn.
• 1858 Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragette.
• 1871 Kunikida Doppo, Japanese writer.
• 1919 Iris Murdoch.
• 1922 Jiri Lederer, Czechoslovakia, journalist/dissident.
• 1926 Driss Chraïbi, Moroccan author.
• 1943 Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Irish astrophysicist .
• 1951 Jesse Ventura.

July 15 Word Fact
In 40 US states, land surveyors still use the “US survey foot”, which is 0.0002% longer than the  widely accepted “international foot”.


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words: 

• antifragile: a thing that gains from disorder and thrives on stress.
• barmy: mad; crazy; extremely foolish.
• catoptromancy: a form of divination performed by using a mirror or by crystal gazing.
• dreich: of a person: appropriately serious or solemn.
• fonzanoon: a person who farts in the bathtub and then bites the bubbles.
• humile: lowly; humble.
• impignorate: to put something up as security; to pawn something.
• misqueme: to offend or displease.
• propaedeutic: serving as a preliminary instruction or as an introduction to further study.
• shivviness: the uncomfortable rough feeling caused by the wearing of new underwear.
• titurate: to reduce to fine particles or powder.

July 15, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Exonyms
exonym: a common, external name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, or a language dialect, that is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community; as distinct from an endonym, a common, internal name for a geographical place, group of people, or a language/dialect, that is used only inside the place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language, e.g., Česká Republika to one who lives there.

[click on map for clearer view]

Both word forms can be names of places (toponym), ethnic groups (ethnonym), languages (glossonym), or individuals (personal name). Toponymically speaking, Germany is the English-language exonym that corresponds to the endonym, Deutschland. Interestingly, virtually every place name outside England in the British Isles is an exonym, including the name of each village, town, and city of Ireland, Scotland, and yes, Wales.

On our side of the pond, exonyms become particularly troublesome for places important to our aboriginal brothers and sisters. Mount McKinley is known as Denali to the Koyukon people; the Allegheny River is known as the Ohi:ì:o to the Seneca people; Mount Rainier is known as Tacoma to the Salish people. Even closer to home, Minnesotans have both changed and adopted place names used by this land's original inhabitants. How many can you name? Last year, the city of Minneapolis attempted to rename Lake Calhoun as Bde Maka Ska, recognized as the original Dakota people's endonym for this body of water. John C. Calhoun, who lived from 1782 to 1850 was an ardent supporter of slavery and expulsion of American Indian people from their lands.

According to James A. Matisoff, who introduced the term autonym into linguistics: “Human nature being what it is, exonyms are liable to be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and the outgroup.” Did you know that Caribbean is a exonymic backformation of the word cannibal? Wannaskan Almanac encourages all our writers and readers to carefully research any written references to other peoples or places that may be unkind or offensive. In the age of the Internet, ignorance is no longer a valid excuse. Be careful how you refer to the opponents team or community at your next Mini Mite, Mite, Squirt, Peewee, Bantam, Minor Midget, or Major Midget  hockey game.


From A Year with Rilke, July 15 Entry
Body Delight, from Worpswede, July 16, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet.

If only people could perceive the mystery in all life, down to the smallest thing, and open themselves to it instead of taking it for granted. If only they could revere its abundance which is undividedly both material and spiritual. For the mind’s creation springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only a lighter, more enraptured and enduring recapturing of bodily delight.



Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.

*seven spaces to get the word jolly.