Word-Wednesday for July 24, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 24, 2024, the thirtieth Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of summer, the fourth Wednesday of July, and the two-hundred-sixth day of the year, with one-hundred sixty days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for July 24, 2024
Wild Red Raspberry
Rubus idaeus is now beginning to sport berries in the Wannaskan countryside. This hearty shrub that survives in a variety of environmental conditions from roadsides to wetlands. Like the Jack pine, it survives areas that have been burned, and new generations spread quickly from seed or rhizome [/RĪ-zōm/ n., a continuously growing horizontal underground stem which puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals]. Rubus idaeus plays important roles in stabilizing soils, filtering water in riparian [rə-PER-rē-ən/ adj., relating to wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams] habitats, aaaaand providing its prolific flowers for insects and sweet red fruit for mammals.

July 24 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


July 24 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 24, 2024
Sunrise: 5:47am; Sunset: 9:13pm; 2 minutes, 29 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 11:06pm; Moonset: 9:45am, waning gibbous, 88% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for July 24, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             78                     96                     84
Low              55                     40                     70


Answer July
by Emily Dickinson

Answer July—
Where is the Bee—
Where is the Blush—
Where is the Hay? 

Ah, said July—
Where is the Seed—
Where is the Bud—
Where is the May—
Answer Thee—Me— 

Nay—said the May—
Show me the Snow—
Show me the Bells—
Show me the Jay! 


July 24 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Thermal Engineer Day
• National Drive-Thru Day
• National Cousins Day
• National Amelia Earhart Day
• National Tequila Day
• National Tell an Old Joke Day
• Feast Day of Declán of Ardmore

July 24 Word Pun
A pun walks into a bar, and ten people die.

Pun in; ten dead.

Jul 24 Word Riddle
Why does the pessimist avoid German sausage?*


July 24 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

    Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.
               —The Rev. Dr. Mucker, in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman

    Cold pie is a detestable
    American comestible.
    That's why I'm done—or undone—
    So far from that dear London.
               —From the Headstone of a British Nobleman, in Kalamazoo


July 24 Etymology Word of the Week
awkward
/ÔK-wərd/ adj., causing difficulty; hard to do or deal with; causing or feeling embarrassment or inconvenience, from mid-14th century (adv.), "in the wrong direction," from awk "back-handed" + adverbial suffix -weard (see -ward). The original sense is obsolete. As an adjective, "turned the wrong way," 1510s. The meaning "clumsy, wanting ease and grace in movement" is recorded by 1520s. Of persons, "embarrassed, ill-at-ease," from 1713s. Related: Awkwardly. Other 15th-17th century formations from awk, none of them surviving, were awky, awkly, awkness.


July 24 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1487 Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, rebel against ban on foreign beer.
• 1793 France passes first copyright law.
• 1824 Harrisburg Pennsylvanian newspaper publishes results of first public opinion poll.
• 1901 Writer O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
• 1956 Brendan Behan's first play Quare Fellow premieres.
• 1967 First modern hospice St. Christopher's founded by Dr. Cicely Saunders in London.

July 24 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1738 Betje Wolff [Elizabeth Wolff-Bekker], Dutch novelist and poet.
• 1757 Vladimir Borovikovsky [Vоlоdymyr Borovyk], Russian painter.
• 1802 Alexandre Dumas, French author of The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo.
• 1841 Raimundo Madrazo y Garreta, Spanish Realistic painter.
• 1857 Henrik Pontoppidan, Danish writer.
• 1860 Alphonse Mucha, Czech Nouveau painter and artist.
• 1867 Edward Frederic Benson, English novelist.
• 1867 Vicente Acosta, Salvadoran poet.
• 1878 Edward Plunkett, Irish writer and dramatist.
• 1886 Junichiro Tanizaki, Japanese writer.
• 1895 Robert Graves, English writer and poet.
• 1897 Amelia Earhart, American aviator.
• 1897 Karl von Mechow, German writer.
• 1898 Caterina Jarboro, African-American opera singer and 1st black female performer to sing on opera stage in US.
• 1899 Chief Dan George [Tes-wah-no], Canadian Indian author, poet.
• 1900 Zelda Fitzgerald [née Sayre], American writer.
• 1916 John D. MacDonald, American novelist.
• 1922 Madeleine Ferron, French Canadian writer.
• 1924 Janine Charrat, French ballerina and choreographer.
• 1925 Ignacio Aldecoa, Spanish writer.
• 1929 Hedda J. Garza, American writer.
• 1986 Alissa Firsova, Russian-British classical pianist and composer.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Write a story or pram from the following words:

• caesura: /sə-ZHo͝o-rə/ n., (in Greek and Latin verse) a break between words within a metrical foot; (in modern verse) a pause near the middle of a line; any interruption or break.
• drugget: /DRəG-ət/ n., a coarse fabric used for floor coverings; a floor covering made of a coarse woven fabric.
• kayfabe: /KĀ- fāb/ n., (in professional wrestling) the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic.
• meh: /me(h)/ exclam., expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm; adj., uninspiring; unexceptional.
• menhir: /MEN-(h)ir/ n., a tall upright stone of a kind erected in prehistoric times in western Europe.
• mews: /myo͞oz/ n., a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables; a group of stables, typically with rooms above, built around a yard or along an alley.
• parp: /parp/ v., to make a honking sound like a horn; n., a honking sound like a horn, or an instance of this.
• pluff: /plu̇f/ adj., soft and puffy.
• rede: /rēd/ n., advice or counsel give by one person to another; v., advise (someone); interpret (a dream or riddle).
• sultana: /səl-TA-nə/ n., a small, light brown, seedless raisin used in foods such as puddings and cakes; a wife or concubine of a sultan.

July 24, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
More Musical Words
It's a bittersweet experience to finish a long, beautiful book with many rich characters and oodles of amazing new words. Such is the case as I finish The Time of Our Singing, with a few more music words from Richard Power's novel:

• buffa: /BÜ-fə/ n., a woman who is a singer of comic roles in opera.
• comprimario: /käm-prə̇-MA(A)-rē-ō/ n., a singer or dancer especially in an operatic organization who is ranked usually just below the primary singers and dancers.
• crumhorn: /KRo͝oM-hôrn/ n., a medieval wind instrument with an enclosed double reed and an upward-curving end, producing an even, nasal sound.
• duple: /Do͞o-pəl/ adj., (of rhythm) based on two main beats to the measure.
• hemiola: /hem-ē-Ō-lə/ n., a musical figure in which, typically, two groups of three beats are replaced by three groups of two beats, giving the effect of a shift between triple and duple meter.
• melisma: /mə-LIZ-mə/ n., a group of notes sung to one syllable of text.
• ostinato: /äs-tə-NÄ-dō/ n., a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.
• plagal: /PLĀ-ɡ(ə)l/ adj., (of a church mode) containing notes between the dominant and the note an octave higher, having the final in the middle.
• submediant: /səb-MĒ-dē-ənt/ n., the sixth note of the diatonic scale of any key.

The art of music is one of time and placement, where groupings of notes stand in as words, but where the composer and musician have so much more access to tempo, and in some ways, time, than do most writers, with the exception of the poet. Near the end of The Time of Our Singing, one of the main characters reflects on the 1500-year-old choral hymm he’s been singing:

Written music is like nothing in the world—an index of time. The idea is so bizarre, it’s almost miraculous: fixed instructions on how to recreate the simultaneous. How to be a flow, both motion and instant, both stream and cross section. While you do this, you, you, and you do otherwise. The score does not really set down the lines themselves; it writes out the spaces between their moving points. And there's no way to say just what a particular whole sums to, short of reenacting it. And so our performances rejoined all those countless marriage parties, births, and funerals where this map of moving nows was ever unrolled.

From A Year with Rilke, July 24 Entry
Fear and Fearlessness, from Early Journals

Those who sense eternity are beyond all fear. They see in every night the place where day begins, and are consoled.

Fearlessness is necessary for summer to come. Spring can be troubled; to its blossoming, uneasiness is like a home. But fruit needs the strength and calm of the sun. All must be ready to receive, with wide open gateways and substantial bridges.

A race that is born in fear comes as a stranger to the world and never finds its way home.

The Orchard
by Marc Chagall

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.






*She fears the Wurst.