Word-Wednesday for September 4, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 4, 2024, the thirty-sixth Wednesday of the year, the eleventh Wednesday of summer, the first Wednesday of September, and the two-hundred-forty-eighth day of the year, with one-hundred eighteen days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for September 4, 2024
Indian Pipe - a final flowering
Along with some remaining Smooth Blue Aster and Ragweed, Monotropa uniflora is one of the last flowers to bloom in September. Growing in choir-like groups, the fragile, one-inch, translucent white flowers nod to one another as they knock heads and blacken from their bruising. Indian Pipe produces no chlorophyll, and like fungi, can thrive in the shadiest of places, sustained by the green plants around it.

September 4 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


September 4 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 4, 2024
Sunrise: 6:46am; Sunset: 8:00pm; 3 minutes, 29 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:17am; Moonset: 8:33pm, waxing crescent, 2% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for September 4, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             71                     94                     77
Low              47                    29                     53

Mowing
by Robert Frost

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

September 4 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Spice Blend Day
• National Macadamia Nut Day
• National Newpaper Carrier Day
• National Wildlife Day
• Feast Day of Ultan of Ardbraccan, Patron Saint of pediatricians.

September 4 Word Pun
Ban pre-shredded cheese. Make America grate, again.


September 4 Word Riddle
When does a joke become a dad joke?*


September 4 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

    "There is no art," says Shakespeare, foolish man,
    "To read the mind's construction in the face."
    The physiognomists his portrait scan,
    And say: "How little wisdom here we trace!
    He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
    So, in his own defence, denied our art."
                                —Lavatar Shunk


September 4 Etymology Word of the Week
yeoman
/YŌ-mən/ n., a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder, from circa 1300, "attendant in a noble household," of unknown origin, perhaps a contraction of Old English iunge man "young man," or from an unrecorded Old English geaman, equivalent of Old Frisian gaman "villager," from Old English -gea "district, region, village," cognate with Old Frisian ga, ge, German Gau, Gothic gawi, from Proto-Germanic gaujan.

Sense of "commoner who cultivates his land" is recorded from early 15th century; also the third order of fighting men (late 14th century, below knights and squires, above knaves), hence yeomen's service "good, efficient service" (circa 1600). Meaning "naval petty officer in charge of supplies" is first attested 1660s. Yeowoman first recorded 1892: "Then I am yeo-woman O the clumsy word!" [Tennyson, The Foresters].


September 4 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 925 Aethelstan crowned King of the Anglo Saxons by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Kingston upon Thames.
• 1805 First edition of Batavian State Courier published.
• 1833 First newsboy hired (Barney Flaherty, 10 years old by the New York Sun).
• 1882 In its first large-scale test, Thomas Edison's light bulb is used to light NY's Pearl Street Station
• Inventor Thomas Edison.
• 1893 English author Beatrix Potter first writes the story of Peter Rabbit.
• 1950 Beetle Bailey comic strip debuts in twelve newspapers.

September 4 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 973 Al-Biruni, Iranian mathematician, astronomer and polymath, born in Kath, Khwarezm, Afrighid dynasty.
• 1596 Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet.
• 1622 Jacob Hintze, German composer.
• 1746 Bernardus Bosch, Dutch poet.
• 1768 François René de Chateaubriand, French novelist.
• 1809 Juliusz Slowacki, Polish poet.
• 1815 Mihály Mosonyi, Hungarian composer.
• 1816 François Bazin, French composer
• 1824 Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer.
• 1824 Phoebe Cary, American poet.
• 1843 Ján Levoslav Bella, Slovak composer.
• 1846 Daniel Burnham, American architect.
• 1851 John Dillon, Irish poet.
• 1859 Edoardo Mascheroni, Italian composer.
• 1869 Geart Aeilco Wumkes, Frisian writer.
• 1870 Friedrich Panzer, German germanist.
• 1888 Oskar Schlemmer, German painter, sculptor and choreographer.
• 1893 Peter Rabbit.
• 1901 Paul Osborn, American playwright.
• 1905 Antanas Račiūnas, Lithuanian composer.
• 1905 Mary Renault [Challans], British writer.
• 1906 Han G. Hoekstra, Dutch poet.
• 1908 Richard Wright, American author.
• 1909 Karel Horky, Czech composer.
• 1913 Kenzo Tange, Japanese architect.
• 1916 Robert A. W. Lowndes, American science fiction author.
• 1922 Per Olof Sundman, Swedish writer.
• 1924 Joan Aiken, English writer of children's books.
• 1935 Ora Bat Chaim, Israeli cellist and composer.
• 1941 Petr Král, Czech poet.
• 1941 Pat Barrett, Irish professional wrestler.
• 1948 Joe O'Donnell, Irish musician.
• 1978 Christian Walz, Swedish artist.
• 1982 Hildur Guðnadóttir, Icelandic cellist and composer.
• 2179 Nyota Uhura, USS Enterprise communications officer, born in Nairobi, Kenya.

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

• acrasial: /uh-KRAY-zhuhl/ adj., lacking self-control; prone to excess; intemperate, uncontrolled.
• bajulate: /BAJ-uh-layt/ v., to bear a heavy burden.
• canitude: /KAN-ih-tood/ n., greyness; hoariness; whiteness.
• dodrantal: /doh-DRAN-tuhl/ adj., of nine inches in length.
• evection: /ə-VEK-SHən/ n., regular variation in the eccentricity of the moon's orbit around the earth, caused mainly by the sun's attraction.
• famigerate: /fuh-MIJ-uh-rayt/ v., to carry news from abroad.
• neuston: /No͞oS-t(ə)n/ n., small aquatic organisms inhabiting the surface layer or moving on the surface film of water; whirligig.
• protreptic: /prō-TREP-tik/ adj., an utterance (such as a speech) designed to instruct and persuade.
• semion: /SEH-mee-on/ n., a kind of anyon with statistical properties between those of fermions and bosons.
• upful: /UP-fuhl/ adj., inspiring happiness, optimism, or hope; (esp. of music) cheerful, uplifting.

September 4, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
progymnasmata
/proh-gim-NAZ-muh-tuh/ n., Greek προγυμνάσματα "fore-exercises"; Latin praeexercitamina, a series of preliminary rhetorical exercises that began in ancient Greece and continued during the Roman Empire, first practiced by students of rhetoric, who began their schooling between ages twelve and fifteen, to prepare for writing declamations after they had completed their education with the grammarians.

The progymnasmata handbook contained a series of fourteen writing exercises presented in order of increasing difficulty, beginning with story-telling and ending with argument - much like a Sven and Ula story. As an exercise for your own writing, or as a template for your next writing workshop, here are the elements of the progymnasmata:

Fable (mythos)
Aesop's fables were popular at the time that rhetoric became a common topic of study, and there are three forms:

• the rational form (where characters are men and women);
• the ethical form (where animals are protagonists);
• a third form involving both.

The common feature of all three forms is the moral, stated before the story begins or after it has concluded.

Narrative (diēgēma)
This training is the result of Aristotle's theory of categories, and it introduces students to the four values of narrative: perspicuity, incisiveness, persuasiveness, and purity of language. The content of the narrative exercise in the progymnasmata is either political, historical, or fictional. Just as diegesis indicates the narrative plot of a film, the so-called narrative of a speech or oration moves the content forward.

Anecdote (chreia)
Students use  and elaborate on an action or saying of a famous person, developing the meanings of these actions or quotations framed under the headings of praise, paraphrase, cause, example of meaning, compare and contrast, testimonies, and an epilogue. Many Wannaskan reader may be most familiar with the anecdote from its frequent use in the Bible frequently used in the Bible.

Maxim (gnōmē)
Maxims, otherwise known as proverbs, were first described by Aristotle, and are divided by the progymnasmata into: protreptic, apotreptic, declarative, simple, and compound. A moral generalization was given to students about a writer, and they were asked to create something similar to an anecdote about the writer.

Refutation (anaskeuē)
This exercise required the student to logically reason and write against and idea or event drawn from myths, narratives, or fables. The student's argument was that something was either impossible, illogical, unsuitable, or inexpedient.

Confirmation (kataskeuē)
The confirmation exercise is the opposite of refutation: the student reasons and writes in favor of something drawn from legends and literature.

Commonplace (koinos topos)
Working out the commonplace involves writing about vice by envisioning criticism of stereotypes rather than individuals. Students do this by using contradiction, comparison, and maxim to attack the motivation of the demographic described.

Encomium (enkōmion)
Just as this word is defined today, students write encomium to praise persons, things, times, places, animals, and nature. Enconmiums could be engendered from the headings: upbringing, deeds,  or skills, and it was sometimes written in the form of a comparison with another person, an epilogue, or a prayer.

Invective (psogos)
One of the twenty-first century's most popular progymnasmata, invective opposes commonplace with attacks on a specific, named individual, usually a political or cultural figure.

Comparison (synkrisis)
The comparison writing exercise acts as a double encomium or a combination of an encomium of one person or thing and the invective against another.

Personification (ēthopoeia)
Students used personification by writing a speech ascribed to the ghost of a known person or of an imaginary or mythological character from past, present, or future times. This exercise encourages students to perform it with clarity, conciseness, and floridity.

Description (ekphrasis)
When writing ekphrasis, students produce an exhaustively complete description, such as detailed information about a person from head-to-toe or an event from start to finish. This form is seen in many classical literature and historical writings.

Argument
Because this exercise is only an introduction to argument in the philosophical schools, the use of thesis in as a progymnasmata was not performed until first completing all previous exercises. Students had to come up with a thesis argument of their own nature, where these questions were often ones difficult to answer, e.g., Who is more intelligent, Sven or Ula?

Introduction to law (nomou eisphora)
The Greeks referred to this final writing exercise as a gymnasma rather than progymnasmata, because the student writes this exercise in the form of advocacy of a proposed law or opposition of it. The argument is first stated, a counterargument follows, and then the headings are discussed.


From A Year with Rilke, September 4 Entry
Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes (II), from New Prams

On this single path they came.

First, the slender figure cloaked in blue,
looking straight ahead, tense and unspeaking.
Propelled by relentless haste,
his stride devoured the path. Under the folds
of the mantel, his hands were clenched,
and barely felt the weight of the lyre he carried with him always.
His senses were as though divided:
for his sight, like a dog, raced ahead,
turned around, came back only to run off again
and wait at the next bend.
But his hearing lingered behind.
Sometimes it seemed to be trying to reach back
to the steps of the other two
who should follow him all the way uphill.
At times there was nothing but the echo of his own footfall
and the flutter of his cloak behind him.

Houses Along a Road
by Paul Cézanne

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.






*During delivery it becomes apparent.