Word-Wednesday for July 9, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 9, 2025, the twenty-first Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of summer, the second Wednesday of July, and the one-hundred ninetieth day of the year, with one-hundred seventy-five days remaining. 

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for July 9, 2025
Milkweed Blooming
Asclepias, a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, are named for their latex - a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides /kär-DĒN-ᵊl-īdz/, a toxic milky substance exuded when the plant's cells are damaged. However, as with many such plants, some species feed upon milkweed leaves or the nectar from their flowers. A noteworthy feeder on milkweeds is the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, which uses and requires certain milkweeds as host plants for its larvae. 

July 9 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


July 9 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 9, 2025
Sunrise: 5:31am; Sunset: 9:27pm; 1 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 9:27pm; Moonset: 3:38am, waxing gibbous, 96% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for July 9, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             78                     96                     84
Low              57                     37                      65

July
by John Updike

The sun is rich


And gladly pays


In golden hours,


Silver days,

And long green weeks


That never end.


School’s out.


The time 

Is ours to spend.

There’s Little League,


Hopscotch, the creek,


And, after supper,


Hide-and-seek.

The live-long light


Is like a dream,
and freckles come


Like flies to cream.

July 9 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Dimples Day
• National Sugar Cookie Day

July 9 Word Pun

July 9 Word Riddle
What’s the difference between a well-dressed woman on a unicycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle?*


July 9 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
ENOUGH, pro., All there is in the world if you like it.

    Enough is as good as a feast—for that matter
    Enougher's as good as a feast and the platter.
                                        —Arbely C. Strunk


July 9 Etymology Word of the Week
reclamation
/rek-lə-MĀ-SH(ə)n/ n., the process of claiming something back or of reasserting a right, from late 15th century, reclamacion, "a revoking" (of a grant, etc.), from Old French réclamacion and directly from Latin reclamationem (nominative reclamatio) "a cry of 'no', a shout of disapproval," noun of action from past participle stem of reclamare "cry out against, protest" (see reclaim: from Old French reclamer "to call upon, invoke; claim; seduce; to call back a hawk"). From 1630s as "action of calling (someone) back" (from iniquity, etc.); meaning "action of claiming as a possession something taken away" is from 1787. Of waste land from 1848; the notion is "action of subduing to fitness or use;" of used or waste material or objects, by 1937.


July 9 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1763 The Mozart family grand tour of Europe began, lifting the profile of son Wolfgang Amadeus.
• 1776 US Declaration of Independence is read to George Washington's troops in New York.

July 9 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1689 Alexis Piron, French dramatist.
• 1721 Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet.
• 1764 Ann Radcliffe, English Gothic novelist.
• 1764 Ann Ward, English author and poet.
• 1766 Johanna Schopenhauer, German writer.
• 1775 Matthew Lewis, English novelist.
• 1791 Nicolás Ledesma, Spanish organist and composer.
• 1834 Jan Neruda, Czech journalist and poet.
• 1839 Carl Baermann, German composer.
• 1841 Carl Lumbye, Danish composer.
• 1855 Paul Zilcher, German pianist, composer.
• 1879 Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer.
• 1881 Richard Hageman, Dutch born American pianist, composer.
• 1898 Gerard Walschap, Flemish writer.
• 1898 Marcel Delannoy, French composer.
• 1900 Robert Oboussier, Swiss composer.
• 1901 Barbara Cartland, English romance author.
• 1902 Gerhard Pohl, German writer.
• 1904 William LeFanu, Irish librarian.
• 1906 Beene Dubbelboer, Dutch writer.
• 1911 Mervyn Peake, British writer and illustrator.
• 1915 David Diamond, American composer.
• 1916 Dean Goffin, New Zealand composer.
• 1918 Herbert Brün, German composer.
• 1924 Pierre Cochereau, French composer.
• 1926 Murphy Anderson, American comic artist.
• 1933 Nodar Gabunia, Georgian composer.
• 1933 Oliver Sacks, English neurologist and author.
• 1936 David Zinman, American composer.
• 1936 June Jordan, Caribbean-American playwright and poet.
• 1938 Paul Seiko Chihara, American-Japanese composer.
• 1942 Hermann Burger, Swiss poet and writer.
• 1944 Glen Cook, American science fiction author.
• 1945 Dean Koontz, American science fiction author.
• 1948 Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph, South African classical composer.
• 1951 Eugeniusz Knapik, Polish pianist and classical music composer.
• 1953 Margie Gillis, Canadian dancer and choreographer.
• 1953 Thomas Ligotti, American author.
• 1957 Paul Merton, British writer.
• 1957 Tim Kring, American writer.

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

• Boston: /BÔS-tən/ n., a card game resembling solo whist; a variation of the waltz or of the two-step.
• curch: /kurrtch/ n., a piece of cloth worn to cover the head, or around the neck, or over the shoulders or breast; spec. a woman's cap or headdress of this kind; also: a handkerchief.
• encomiast: /en-KŌ-mē-ast/ n., one that praises; eulogist.
• geg: /geg/ v., to geg in: to join in with a conversation or activity uninvited; to butt in.
• neveling: /NEV-ə-ling/ adv., on one's face; face-down, from nevel, v., to deliver a blow with the hand or fist, pummel.
• pasquinade: /pass-kwuh-NAYD/ n., a lampoon posted in a public place; (later) any circulated or published lampoon or libel.
• pavlova: /päv-LŌ-və/ n. a dessert consisting of a meringue base or shell filled with whipped cream and fruit.
• scantling: /SKAN(T)liNG/ n., a piece of lumber of small cross section, the size to which a piece of wood or stone is measured and cut; a set of standard dimensions for parts of a structure, especially in shipbuilding.
• skewwhiff: /SKYo͞o-wif/adj., not straight; askew.
• whimbrel: /ˈ(H)WIM-brəl/ n., a small migratory curlew of northern Eurasia and northern Canada, with a striped crown and a trilling call.

July 9, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
prompt
/präm(p)t/ v., (of an event or fact) cause or bring about (an action or feeling); assist or encourage (a hesitating speaker) to say something; n., an act of assisting or encouraging a hesitating speaker; the time limit for the payment of an account, as stated on a prompt note, including, a message or symbol on a screen to show that the system is waiting for input, from mid-14th century, prompten, "to incite to action, urge," from the adjective or from Latin promptus, past participle of promere "to bring forth," from pro "forward" (from Proto-Indo-European root per- (1) "forward") + emere "to take" (from Proto-Indo-European root em- "to take, distribute"); and early 15th century, "readiness" (in phrase in prompte), from Latin promptus. Meaning "hint, information suggested, act of prompting" is from 1590s. The computer sense of "message given by a computer requiring or helping the user to respond" is by 1977.

Who or what prompts our thoughts, feelings, words? As noted above, prompt entered the English language as a computer-related term in 1977, where since that time, a blank search engine box sits patiently (eagerly?) awaiting the subject of your inquiry. Patiently, because the blinking vertical text-entry line will wait without change until you enter your letter, number, or other character; eagerly, because every scrap of information you enter is saved and reused to shape the answers to you next query, and your next, and your next, and your next. Clearly, the prompter and its owner are shaping how you think, whether you choose to believe it, or not. For example, any experience of immediate gratification engages the mesolimbic dopamine pathway — the human reward neurological system that plays a key role in motivation and pleasure. Social media, online games, and "successful" searches result in small squirts of dopamine release, associating all these endeavors instantaneously with a sense of pleasure, which alone can be a highly motivating force for future behaviors, particularly novelty seeking, social validation, and the chance of encountering a very high reward.

Some psychologists refer to this behavior pattern as addiction: /ə-DIK-SH(ə)n/ n., a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence. What harm in computer-stimulated dopamine highs? Well, excessive screen use leads to:

1. thinning of your cerebral cortex and the shrinking of your gray matter, which leads to impaired cognitive functioning like memory and problem-solving.
2. sleep disruption related to the screen blue light emissions, which further impairs cognitive function and puts the user at risk for mood disorders.
3. overstimulation of your dopamine reward system progressively makes the user brain less responsive to other enjoyable experiences, eventually leading to a condition called anhedonia: /an-hē-DŌ-nēə/ n., the inability to perceive pleasure.

Google has already developed "Prompt theory," which in the context of recent viral AI-generated content suggests that human existence and actions are predetermined by prompts, similar to the ways that AI is guided by prompts to generate content. It's a philosophical concept exploring the idea of free will and determinism, often presented through AI characters questioning their own reality and the prompts that define it. The American Academy of Pediatrics publishes screentime guidelines for children of different ages; the Gerontological Society of America does not. Are you the user or the used? What might prompt you to examine your screentime habits?


From A Year with Rilke, July 9 Entry
The Island (III), from New Prams

Only what is within you is near; all else is far.
And this within: so packed and pressured,
barely contained, unsayable.
The island could be a star so insignificant

that space in its terrible blindness takes no note
and mindlessly destroys it.
Thus, unillumined and unheard,
expecting nothing

but that all this may yet come to an end,
it continues doggedly its self-invented course,
alone, outside the patterns made
by planets and the suns they orbit.

Bridge of Maincy
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.







*Attire.