Word-Wednesday for June 18, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for June 18, 2025, the eighteenth Wednesday of the year, the thirteenth and final Wednesday of spring, the third Wednesday of June, and the one-hundred sixty-ninth day of the year, with one-hundred ninety-six days remaining. 

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for June 18, 2025
Columbines Are Blooming
Aquilegia canadensis, known by the Anishinaabe as misudidjiibik, has a complex etymology from across the pond  to here. In the 12th century, the abbess and polymath Hildegard of Bingen referred to the plants as agleya – from which the genus's name in German, Akelei, derives. According to Wikipedia, several scientific and common names for the genus Aquilegia derive from its appearance. The genus name Aquilegia may come from the Latin word for "eagle", aquila, in reference to the petals' resemblance to eagle talons. Another possible etymology for Aquilegia is a derivation from the Latin aquam legere ("to collect water"), aquilegium (a container of water), or aquilex ("dowser" or "water-finder") in reference to the profusion of nectar in the spurs. The most common English-language name, columbine, likely originates in the dove-like appearance of the sepals (columba being Latin for dove). With the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus's 1753 Species Plantarum, the formal name for the genus became Aquilegia. You get the pitcher.

June 18 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


June 18 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for June 18, 2025
Sunrise: 5:20am; Sunset: 9:30pm; 12 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 1:20am; Moonset: 1:19pm, last quarter, 52% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for June 18, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             74                     94                     81
Low              54                    28                     54

Summer Stars
by Carl Sandburg

Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars, 
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars, 
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl, 
So near you are, summer stars, 
So near, strumming, strumming, 
                So lazy and hum-strumming.

June 18 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Wanna Get Away Day
• National Splurge Day
• National Go Fishing Day
• International Sushi Day
• International Picnic Day
• Autistic Pride Day

June 18 Word Pun

June 18 Word Riddle
Who pushes people aside to find a seat after church has started?

a Chairman Joe original

June 18 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
WASHINGTONIAN, n., A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

    They took away his vote and gave instead
    The right, when he had earned, to eat his bread.
    In vain—he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
    To come again and part him from his roll.
                    —Offenbach Stutz


June 18 Etymology Word of the Week
Juneteenth
/jo͞on-TĒNTH/ n., also June 'teenth, name of the American holiday celebrating the freedom of Blacks from slavery, attested by 1891 in local newspaper notices of celebrations in East Texas. The name is "an African-American slave-dialect rendering of June 19th" [Iva Smith and Aurora Ramirez-Krodel, A Yearbook of Holidays and Observances]. A regional holiday in Texas, it was declared a federal holiday in 2021.


June 18 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1178 Five monks at Canterbury report something exploding on the moon shortly after sunset (only known observation).
• 1821 Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischutz (The Marksman) premieres.
• 1872 Woman's Suffrage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1873 Susan B. Anthony fined $100 ($2,200 in 2020 value) for voting for US President in Rochester, New York.
• 1928 American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean (as a passenger).
• 1948 American Library Association adopts Library Bill of Rights.
• 2020 World record for greatest duration for a single lighting flash of 17.1 seconds during thunderstorm over Uruguay and Argentina according to World Meteorological Organization.

June 18 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1466 Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer.
• 1511 Bartolommeo Ammanati, Italian sculptor and architect.
• 1552 Gabriello Chiabrera, Italian poet.
• 1581 Thomas Overbury, English poet.
• 1677 Antonio Maria Bononcini, Italian composer.
• 1717 Johann Stamitz, Czech composer.
• 1723 Giuseppe Scarlatti, Italian composer.
• 1740 Karel van Poucke, Flemish sculptor.
• 1744 Georg Augustin Holler, German composer.
• 1757 Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, Austrian-French composer.
• 1780 Michael Henkel, German composer.
• 1812 Ivan Goncharov, Russian novelist.
• 1820 Martin Andreas Udbye, Norwegian composer.
• 1822 Henry David Leslie, British composer.
• 1850 Richard Heuberger, Austrian composer.
• 1861 José Trindade Coelho, Portuguese writer.
• 1862 Carolyn Wells, American novelist and poet.
• 1863 George Essex Evans, Australian poet.
• 1865 Henry Allan, Irish painter.
• 1877 James Montgomery Flagg, American illustrator.
• 1889 Paul Joostens, Belgian avant-garde artist.
• 1896 Philip Barry, American dramatist.
• 1901 Denis Johnston, Irish writher
• 1903 Raymond Radiguet, French writer.
• 1904 Manuel Rosenthal, French composer.
• 1905 Eduard Tubin, Estonian-Swedish composer.
• 1914 Efraín Huerta, Mexican poet.
• 1915 Victor Legley, Belgian violinist, composer.
• 1916 Roman Toi, Estonian-Canadian composer.
• 1917 Akhmet Jevdet Ismail Hajiyev, Azerbaijani composer.
• 1918 Bert Schierbeek, Dutch writer and poet.
• 1920 Aster Berkhof [Louis Van de Bergh], Flemish writer.
• 1922 Claude Helffer, French composer.
• 1927 Simeon Pironkov, Bulgarian composer.
• 1928 Hans Noë, Romanian-American sculptor, architect.
• 1929 Merrill Bradshaw, American composer.
• 1932 Geoffrey Hill, English poet.
• 1933 Colin Brumby, Australian composer.
• 1937 Gail Godwin, American novelist.
• 1943 Éva Marton, Hungarian operatic soprano.
• 1945 Shirish Korde, Indian-Ugandan composer.
• 1946 Russell Ash, British author.
• 1947 Georgs Pelēcis, Latvian composer.
• 1949 Chris Van Allsburg, American author and illustrator of children's books.
• 1957 Richard Powers, American novelist.
• 1961 Angela Johnson, American novelist and poet.
• 1964 Iarla Ó Lionáird, Irish singer.
• 1969 Christopher Largen, American author.
• 1976 Witte Wartena, Dutch artist.
• 1977 Du Yun, Chinese-American composer.

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

• calanque: /kə-LÄŋK/ n., a cove or inlet.
• dudgeon: /DəJ-ən/ n., a feeling of offense or deep resentment.
• golliwog: /GÄL-ē-wäɡ/ n., a soft doll with bright clothes, a black face, and fuzzy hair (now widely regarded as an offensive racist caricature).
• guipure: /ɡi-PYo͝oR/ n., a heavy lace consisting of embroidered motifs held together by large connecting stitches.
• loess: /les/ n., a loosely compacted yellowish-gray deposit of windblown sediment of which extensive deposits occur, e.g., in eastern China and the American Midwest.
• meresauce: /MEER-sawss/ n., brine used for pickling and marinading.
• pashmina: /päSH-MĒ-nə/ n., fine-quality material made from goat's wool.
• postern: /PÄS-tərn/ n., a back or side entrance.
• reckon: /RECK-uhn/ n., a chain or other device from which cooking vessels may be suspended over a fire.
• transhumance: /tranz-(H)Yo͞o-məns/ n., the action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.

June 18, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
Words from Africa
The newest book on the Word-Wednesday reading list is Americanah, A Novel, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2013. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who emigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, frequently using Igbo words and musing on the different use of language in each continent. English enjoys many words of African descent, which evolved as the majority of Africans sold into this country from 1650-1860 adapted their native languages into English. The major African languages represented by the peoples shipped during the slave trade appear in this map.

Approximately per cent of the ancestors of Americans of African descent came from the Mande and Bantu  ethnic and linguistic groups. These two cultures contributed substantially to the diversity of the linguistic stock in North America. Africans from the Senegambia region of West Africa included the Bambara, Wolof, Mandingo, Fula, and Serer. Over thirty percent of Africans arriving into South Carolina during the transatlantic trade were Mande speakers. The Mande civilization was the greatest and most advanced of the Sudanic empires. It was also the earliest and most complex civilization to emerge in the western Sudan.

Some of the new African-language words reflected the original African-language word, others were English translations. Like Chinese, pronunciations and facial expressions are included in the "definition" of many words of African origin. Ebonics /ih-BAH-niks/, n., also known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), is a distinct variety of English spoken by some African Americans, and some American Africans, characterized by unique grammatical and pronunciation features. Here are just a few African words that have made their way into our common cultural heritage:

• bad: /bad/ adj., from GAMBIAN, BAMBARAN, very good, used especially in emphatic form, baaaaad, e.g., Michael Jackson’s I’m baaaad!” Similar are meanings, in the sense of satisfying, fine, attractive; wicked, in the sense of excellent, capable.
• bambi: /bam-bee/ n., from BANTU mubambi, one who lies down in order to hide; position of antelope  fawn for concealment; e.g., Walt Disney's Bambi).
• banana: /bə-NA-nə/ n., WOLOF, first recorded in 1563, and entered British English in the seventeenth century via Spanish and Portuguese.
• chigger: /CHIG-ər/ n., WOLOF, jiga, insect, sand flea, first recorded in 1743, via Caribbean; originally pronounced and spelled chigo, chego, or chiego.
• cowboy: /KOU-boi/ n., originated in Colonial period when African labor and skills were closely associated with cattle raising, when Africans stationed at cowpens with herding responsibilities were referred to as “cowboy,” just as Africans who worked in the “Big House” were known as “houseboy. As late as 1865, following the Civil War, Africans whose livestock responsibilities were with cattle were referred to as “cowboys” in plantation records. After 1865, some whites associated with cattle industry referred to themselves as “cattlemen” to distinguish themselves from “cowboys".
• cool: /ko͞ol/ adj., MANDINGO, cool, slow, and gone not; hence fast, terms applied to music and dancing: calm, controlled, slow tempo and the opposite, hot, fast, and energetic.
• diddle: /DID-(ə)l/ v., from BANTU dinga: deceive, trick, cheat; cheat, swindle; e.g., diddy-wa-diddle. 
• do one’s thing: /dū wənz TING/ v., MANDINGO, ka a fen ke (literally, “to do one’s t’ing”), to undertake one’s favorite activity or assume one’s favorite role.
• goober: /GŌŌ-bər/ n., BANTU nguba, peanut; use recorded 1834. Another word for peanut is pinder, or pinal, from Congo mpinda, peanut; use first recorded in Jamaica 1707, South Carolina 1848.
• hep and hip: /hep/ /hip/ adj., WOLOF, hepi, hipi, to open one’s eyes, to be aware of what is going on, hence hipi-kat, someone with eyes open, aware of what is going on.
• honkie: /HÖŋ-kē/ n., WOLOF, hong, red pink; color used to describe white people in African languages, also pink, a white man, and redneck, a powerful white farmer in the U.S. In Ebonics, honkie referred to whites who would come to the black community, part, and honk their horns for their black dates.  This term was used before the 1960s.
• hulla-ballo: /həl-ə-bə-LŌŌ/ n., BANTU, halua balualua, when those that are coming arrive, hence noise, uproar, racket of greeting.
• jazz: /jaz/ n., BANTU, jaja, to make dance, obsolete forms jas, jasy. The numerous applications of this term center on basic verb sense of “to speed up, excite, exaggerate, act in an unrestricted or extreme way,” with corresponding use as and as adjective, “jazzy.”
• jiggaboo: /JIG-ə-bü/ n., BANTU, tshikabo, they bow the head docilely, a derogatory term for black person. In Black English, a jiggaboo is someone who is extremely black, with strong African features, as opposed to high yellow, or light-skinned.
• jive: /jīv/ v., WOLOF, jev, jew, to talk about someone in his absence, esp. in a disparaging way.  Misleading talk; to talk in a misleading or insincere way.  Applied to sexual and musical activity.
• kook: ko͞ok/ n., BANTU, kuku, dolt, blockhead; a strange, peculiar person.
• mojo: /MŌ-jō/ n., FULA, moca, to cast a magic spell by spitting, from mocore, magic spell; mainly used today in sense of something working in one’s favor: “I got my mojo working!”
• moola or mula: /MŌŌ-lä/ n., BANTU, mulambo, receipts, tax money; money, wealth.
• okay: /ō-KĀ/ exclam., MANDINGO, o-ke; DOGON, o-kay; DJABO, o-ke; WESTERN FULA eeyi kay; WOLOF, waw kayk, waw ke, all meaning "yes, indeed!” “That’s it, all right".  Recorded use of oh ki, indicating surprised affirmation, in black Jamaican English 1816, predates by over twenty years the popularization of OK in white speech of New England.
• phoney: /FŌ-nē/ adj., MANDINGO, fani, foni (to be) false, valueless; to tell a lie; counterfeit, sham, something false or valueless.
• tote: v., KIKONGO, tota, to pick up; KIMBUNDU, tuta, to carry, load. Black West African English (Sierra Leone) tot, Cameroon tut, to carry.
• yackety-yak: /YAK-uh-tee YAK/ n., BANTU, ya ntata ya ntata, of the passing moment only temporary; dle chatter, monotonous talk.
• zombie: n., TSHILUBA, Nzambi, God, and mujangi, spirit of the dead; KIMBUNDU, nzumbi, ghost, phantom;  supernatural force that brings a corpse back to life.

From A Year with Rilke, June 18 Entry
The Animal That Never Was, from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 4

This is the animal that never was.
They didn't know, and loved him anyway:
his bearing, his neck, the way he moved,
the light in his quiet eyes.

True, he didn't exist. But because they loved him
he became a real animal. They made a space for him.
And in that clear, uncluttered space, he lifted his head
and hardly needed to exist.

They fed him: not with grain, but ever
with the chance that he could be.
And that so strengthened him

that, from within, he grew a horn.
All white, he drew near to a virgin and found himself
in a silver mirror and in her.

unfinished sculpture La Pensee
by Auguste Rodin

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.







*Manny Pewlate.