Word-Wednesday for July 2, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 2, 2025, the twentieth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of summer, the first Wednesday of July, and the one-hundred eighty-third day of the year, with one-hundred eighty-two days remaining. 

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for July 2, 2025
Fireflies!
Bugs to love. Lampryris nociluca, also known as glowworms and lightening bugs, ọkụ ọkụ, IGBO, and ホタル (hotaru), JAPANESE. The Japanese set aside special park areas just to enjoy the lightshows of this summertime performer. Synchronization of flashing occurs in several species; it is explained as phase synchronization and spontaneous order. Tropical fireflies routinely synchronize their flashes among large groups, particularly in Southeast Asia. At night along river banks in the Malaysian jungles, fireflies synchronize their light emissions precisely. In the United States, one of the most famous sightings of fireflies blinking in unison occurs annually near Elkmont, Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains during the first weeks of June.

July 2 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


July 2 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 2, 2025
Sunrise: 5:25am; Sunset: 9:30pm; 1 minutes, 0 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 1:43pm; Moonset: 12:41am, first quarter, 42% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for July 2, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             77                     90                     84
Low              56                     34                     53

Fireflies in the Garden
by Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,


That though they never equal stars in size,


(And they were never really stars at heart)


Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

July 2 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Wildland Firefighter Day
• National Anisette Day
• World UFO Day

July 2 Word Pun
Sven likes all his furniture, but he and his recliner go WAY back.


July 2 Word Riddle
If a small, ring-tailed, masked mammal found in North America could talk and developed noted skill and achieved widespread admiration for telling enthralling stories and anecdotes, what would it be called?


July 2 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.

    "Now lay your bet with mine, nor let
    These gamblers take your cash."
    "Nay, this child makes no bet." "Great snakes!
    How can you be so rash?"
                        —Bootle P. Gish


July 2 Etymology Word of the Week
placebo
/pləˈsēbō/ n., a harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect, from early 13th century, name given to the rite of Vespers of the Office of the Dead, so called from the opening of the first antiphon, "I will please the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm cxvi.9, in Vulgate Placebo Domino in regione vivorum), from Latin placebo "I shall please," future indicative of placere "to please". Medical sense is recorded by 1785, "a medicine given more to please than to benefit the patient." Placebo effect is attested from 1900.


July 2 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1505 After an encounter with a violent thunderstorm, Martin Luther declares that he will become a monk.
• 1679 Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.
• 1843 An alligator falls from sky during a thunderstorm in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 1865 One-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth and his wife Catherine Booth found the East London Christian Mission, now known as the Salvation Army.
• 1900 Jean Sibelius' musical tone poem Finlandia premieres.
• 1941 Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit premieres.
• 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in the series is published.

July 2 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1581 Johann Staden, German baroque organist and composer.
• 1589 Guillaume Messaus, Flemish composer.
• 1636 Daniel Speer, German composer.
• 1652 Guillielmus "Willem" Kerricx, Flemish sculptor.
• 1714 Christoph Willibald Gluck, Austrian composer.
• 1724 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet.
• 1737 François Léonard Rouwyzer, Dutch composer.
• 1746 Hardenack Otto Conrad Zinck, Danish flautist, composer.
• 1763 Peter Ritter, German cellist and composer.
• 1793 Antoine Prumier, French harpist and composer.
• 1814 Thérèse Wartel, French pianist and composer.
• 1819 Charles-Louis Hanon, French composer.
• 1836 Henry Eugene Davies, American writer.
• 1857 Francesco Spetrino, Italian conductor and composer.
• 1865 Lily Braun [Amalie von Kretschmann], German feminist writer.
• 1877 Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss novelist and poet.
• 1880 Albert Szirmai, Hungarian operetta composer.
• 1889 Cor Hermus, Dutch writer.
• 1893 Ralph Hancock, Welsh garden designer.
• 1896 Lydia Mei, Estonian artist who specialized in watercolor and still life.
• 1900 Tyrone Guthrie, British writer and director.
• 1906 Robert Levine Sanders, American composer.
• 1907 Eppo Doeve, Dutch cartoonist and painter.
• 1910 Earl Robinson, American composer.
• 1910 H. G. Adler, Czech-English writer.
• 1910 William Douglas Denny, American composer.
• 1911 Diego Fabbri, Italian playwright.
• 1915 Bert Decorte, Flemish poet.
• 1918 WiBo [Willem Boost], Dutch cartoonist.
• 1919 Jean Craighead George, American writer.
• 1920 Eliseo Diego, Cuban poet.
• 1922 Genrikh Matusovich Vagner, Belarusian composer.
• 1923 Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poet.
• 1926 Octavian Paler, Romanian writer.
• 1927 Ruth Berghaus, German choreographer and opera director.
• 1930 Ahmad Jamal [Frederick Jones], American jazz pianist, composer.
• 1933 David Lewin, American composer.
• 1933 Kalim Siddiqui, Pakistani-British writer.
• 1935 Ed Bullins, American playwright.
• 1939 M. A. Foster, American sci-fi author.
• 1971 Evelyn Lau, Canadian poet and author.
• 1972 Darren Shan, Irish children's author.

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

• arras: /ER-əs/ n., a rich tapestry, typically hung on the walls of a room or used to conceal an alcove.
• beyet: /BEH-yet/ v., to soak, cover, or anoint (a person or thing) with a liquid. Also figurative: to suffuse (a person) with a quality, emotion, etc.
• hagstone: /HAG-stōn/ n., a naturally occurring stone with a hole running through it, often found in streams, rivers, or on beaches; also known as adder stones, witch stones, or fairy stones, and have been attributed various magical properties.
• haslet: /HAZ-lət/ n., a cold meat preparation consisting of chopped or minced pork offal compressed into a loaf before being cooked.
• latilla: /luh-TĒ-uh/ n., a peeled branch or piece of wood laid between beams of a ceiling or above the vigas for decoration.
• numen: /No͞o-m(ə)n/ n., the spirit or divine power presiding over a thing or place.
• petto: /PED-oh/ n., the breast, as the repository of a person's private intentions.
• runkle: /RUNG-kuhl/ v., to wrinkle; to rumple.
• viga: /VĒ-ɡə/ n., a rough-hewn roof timber or rafter, especially in an adobe building.
• yegg: /yeg/ n., a safecraker; a robber.

July 2, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
bug
/bəɡ/ n., a small insect, where insect is defined as a small arthropod animal that has six legs and generally one or two pairs of wings, but also includes any small invertebrate animal, especially one with several pairs of legs, from 1620s (earliest reference is to bedbugs), of unknown origin, probably (but not certainly) from or influenced by Middle English bugge "something frightening, scarecrow" (late 14th century), a word or meaning that has become obsolete since the "insect" sense arose, except in bugbear (1570s) and bugaboo.

The Middle English word probably is connected with Scottish bogill "goblin, bugbear," or obsolete Welsh bwg "ghost, goblin" (compare Welsh bwgwl "threat," earlier "fear," Middle Irish bocanách "supernatural being"). Some speculate that these words are from a root meaning "goat" and represent originally a goat-like specter. Compare also bogey and Puck. Middle English Compendium compares Low German bögge, böggel-mann "goblin." The sense shift perhaps was by influence of Old English -budda, used in compounds for "beetle" (compare Low German budde "louse, grub," Middle Low German buddech "thick, swollen").

The name of bug is given in a secondary sense to insects considered as an object of disgust and horror, and in modern English is appropriated to the noisome inhabitants of our beds, but in America is used as the general appellation of the beetle tribe .... A similar application of the word signifying an object of dread to creeping things is very common. [Hensleigh Wedgwood, A Dictionary of English Etymology, 1859] 

The meaning "defect in a machine" (1889) may have been coined circa 1878 by Thomas Edison (perhaps with the notion of an insect getting into the works). In compounds, the meaning "person obsessed by an idea" (as in firebug "arsonist") is from 1841, perhaps from notion of persistence. The colloquial sense of "microbe, germ" is from 1919. 

Bugs "crazy" is from circa 1900. Bug juice as a slang name for drink is from 1869, originally "bad whiskey." The 1811 slang dictionary has bug-hunter "an upholsterer." Bug-word "word or words meant to irritate and vex" is from 1560s.

Since the verb form includes the definition, annoy or bother (someone), bug tends to be a more inclusive than exclusive negative word. In the world of livingkind, the entire ecosystem depends on bugs; in the world of humankind, bugs cause problems. We rename bug-beauty with words of enchantment, such as firefly, but if bug is attached, it's likely unpleasant. In addition to those mentioned in the etymology, here are a few more:

• bedbug: /BED-bəg/ n., a wingless bloodsucking hemipterous bug (especially Cimex lectularius) sometimes infesting houses and especially beds and feeding on human blood.
• bessybug: /BE-sē-ˌbəg/ n., any of various gregarious flattened dark-colored beetles constituting a family (Passalidae) and living in decaying wood.
• billbug: /BIL-bəg/ n., any of various weevils (as of the genus Sphenophorus) having larvae that eat the roots of cereal and other grasses.
• bugbear: /BəG-ber/ n., an imaginary goblin or specter used to excite fear.
• debug: /dē-BəG/ v., to eliminate errors in or malfunctions of.
• doodlebug: /DÜ-dᵊl-bəg/ n., the larva of an ant lion; a device (such as a divining rod) used in attempting to locate underground gas, water, oil, or ores.
• goldbug: /GŌLD-bəg/ n., a person who invests in or hoards gold.
• greenbug: /GRĒN-bəg/ n., a green aphid (Schizaphis graminum) that is a pest especially of cereal and forage grasses.
• humbug: /HəM-bəg/ n., something designed to deceive and mislead; a willfully false, deceptive, or insincere person; an attitude or spirit of pretense and deception.
• litterbug: /LI-tər-bəg/ n., one who litters a public area.
• mealybug: /MĒ-lē-bəg/ n., any of a family (Pseudococcidae) of scale insects that have a white cottony or waxy covering and are destructive pests especially of fruit trees.
• mudbug: /MəD-bəg/ n., a crayfish.
• spittlebug: /SPI-tᵊl-bəg/ n., any of a family (Cercopidae) of leaping homopterous insects whose nymphal larvae produce a frothy secretion.
• stinkbug: /STIŋK-bəg/ n., any of various hemipterous bugs (family Pentatomidae) that have a flattened, shield-shaped body with a triangular scutellum, emit a disagreeable odor when threatened, disturbed, or crushed, and include agricultural and household pests.
• superbug: /SÜ-pər-bəg/ n., a pathogenic microorganism and especially a bacterium that has developed resistance to the medications normally used against it.
• tumblebug: /TəM-bəl-bəg/ n., any of various scarab beetles (especially genera Scarabaeus, Canthon, Copris, or Phanaeus) that roll dung into small balls, bury them in the ground, and lay eggs in them.

A few bug-words do actually have positive meanings:

• jitterbug: /JI-tər-bəg/ n., a jazz variation of the two-step in which couples swing, balance, and twirl in standardized patterns and often with vigorous acrobatics.
• lovebug: /LəV-bəg/ n., term of endearment.
• shutterbug: /SHə-tər-bəg/ n., a photography enthusiast.

From A Year with Rilke, July 2 Entry
One Sufficient Word, from Les Roses, from Rilke’s Collected French Prams

A rose by itself is every rose.
And this one is irreplaceable,
perfect, one sufficient word
in the context of all things.

Without what we see in her,
how can we speak our hopes
or endure a tender moment
in the winds of departure.

Rose Bouquet
by Paul Cezanne

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.







A raccoonteur.*