Word-Wednesday for September 10, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 10, 2025, the thirtieth Wednesday of the year, the twelfth Wednesday of summer, the second Wednesday of October, and the two-hundred fifty-third day of the year, with one-hundred twelve days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for September 10, 2025
Joe-Pye Weed
Eutrochium is now in bloom, a North American genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, commonly referred to as Joe-Pye weeds, and native to the United States and Canada. Also known as Pkuwiimakw in Munsee, Algonquian linguistic family, Joe Pye is the anglicized spelling of Zhopai, after an Abenaki medicine man who treated typhus with Pkuwiimakw, according to an Anishinaabe ethnobotanist. Joe-Pye Weed varieties grow to an average of six feet tall, so you can’t miss them. Their long stems and beautiful pink flowers also provide homes and food for wildlife.

September 10 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


September 10 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 10, 2025
Sunrise: 6:54am; Sunset: 7:48pm; 3 minutes, 31 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:44pm; Moonset: 10:43am, waning gibbous, 90% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for September 10, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             69                     98                     79
Low              49                     28                     53


Song for Autumn
by  Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

September 10 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National TV Dinner Day
• National Swap Ideas Day
• World Suicide Prevention day

September 10 Word Pun
Sven accidentally drank a bottle of invisible ink last night. He’s in the hospital now, still waiting to be seen.


September 10 Word Riddle
What's that in the Fire, and not in the Flame? What's that in the Master, and not in the Dame? What's that in the Courtier, and not in the Clown? What's that in the Country, and not in the Town?*


September 10 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
INCIVISM, n. In religious affairs, an argument addressed to the nose.

    "He's no good citizen!" the crowd
    Of politicians cries aloud.

    "How so?" says one.

    "Because—why, curse
    The man! while we deplete his purse
    Some air contentedly he hums,
    Or twiddles his incivic thumbs."

    "What more could you desire?"

    "The whelp!
    We want him to stand in and help."

    "Two crowds contend, his purse to twist
    Away—pray which should he assist?"

    "It matters not whose hand unsacks
    His shekels, for we all go snacks."


September 10 Etymology Word of the Week

September 10 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1838 Hector Berlioz's first full-length opera, Benvenuto Cellini, premieres in Paris.
• 1846 Elias Howe takes out a US patent for a lockstitch sewing machine.
• 1847 First theater opens in Hawaii.
• 1849 Famous American actor Edwin Booth makes his stage debut at age 15 in Richard III in Boston.
• 1858 George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.
• 1992 Lucy in Peanuts comics raises her psychiatric help fee from 5 cents to 47 cents.
• 2019 Novelist Margaret Atwood publishes The Testaments, her follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale.

September 10 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1585 Ercole Porta, Italian church composer.
• 1588 Nicholas Lanier, English composer.
• 1645 Romeyn de Hooghe, Dutch painter and goldsmith.
• 1659 Henry Purcell, English organist and composer.
• 1714 Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer.
• 1751 Bartolomeo Campagnoli, Italian violinist and composer.
• 1753 John Soane, English architect.
• 1758 Hannah Webster Foster, American author.
• 1779 Louis Alexandre Piccinni, Italian-French composer.
• 1836 Karl Merz, German-American composer.
• 1841 Max Arthur Macauliffe, Irish writer.
• 1861 Niels Hansen Jacobsen, Danish sculptor and ceramist.
• 1866 Jeppe Aakjær, Danish poet and novelist.
• 1866 Tor Aulin, Swedish composer.
• 1869 Caro Roma [Carrie Northey], American compose.
• 1875 Paul Scheinpflug, German composer.
• 1877 Georgia Douglas Johnson, African American poet and playwright.
• 1883 (Euphemia) "Phemia" Molkenboer, Dutch illustrator, ceramic artist, and furniture designer.
• 1885 (Theodora) "Dora" Pejačević, Croatian compose.
• 1886 Hilda Doolittle, American poetess.
• 1889 Vilém Petrželka, Czech composer.
• 1890 Franz Werfel, Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.
• 1895 Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Indian Telugu writer.
• 1896 Adele Astaire [Lady Charles Cavendish], American dancer and entertainer.
• 1897 Georges Bataille, French writer.
• 1902 Toivo Pekkanen, Finnish writer.
• 1906 Lambertus "Bertus" van Lyre, Dutch composer.
• 1908 Raymond Scott [Harry Warnow], American composer.
• 1912 William Oliver Everson, American poet.
• 1917 Franfo Fortini [Franco Lattes], Italian poet.
• 1918 Rin Tin Tin, German shepherd dog.
• 1919 Lex van Delden [Alexander Zwaap], Dutch composer.
• 1924 Hans Olof “Putte” Wickman, Swedish jazz clarinetist.
• 1926 Beryl Cook, British painter.
• 1928 Leo P. Kelley, American science fiction author.
• 1929 Akio Yashiro, Japanese composer.
• 1934 Larry Sitsky, Australian composer.
• 1934 Vassil Kazandjiev, Bulgarian composer.
• 1935 Mary Oliver, American poet.
• 1937 Paul Martin Palombo, American composer.
• 1943 Neale Donald Walsch, American author.
• 1944 Thomas Allen, British operatic baritone singer.
• 1948 Zhang Chengzhi, Chinese writer.
• 1963 Marian Keyes Irish writer.
• 1982 Misty Copeland, American ballerina.
• 1995 Maol Sheachluinn na n-Uirsgéal Ó hUiginn, Irish writer and poet.

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

• borné: /bor-NAY/ adj., of a person or a person's mind: limited in scope or outlook; narrow-minded.
• cheroot: /SHəˈro͞ot/ n., a cigar with both ends open and untapered. 
• frustum: /FRəS-təm/ n., the portion of a cone or pyramid which remains after its upper part has been cut off by a plane parallel to its base, or which is intercepted between two such planes.
• gilravage: /o eat or drink to excess; to indulge in noisy or drunken merrymaking or feasting; to cause a disturbance or uproar; to cavort./ v., to eat or drink to excess; to indulge in noisy or drunken merrymaking or feasting; to cause a disturbance or uproar; to cavort.
• gledge: /glej/ v., to look asquint or sideways; to squint the eyes; to cast a cunning side look, while laughing quietly; n., a sidelong look.
• haggy: /HAG-ee/ adj., of ground: broken, rough, uneven, boggy; esp. (of peat moorland) cut or eroded into patches of soft bog, drainage gulleys, and areas or outcrops of firm ground.
• incivism: /IN-sih-viz-um/ n., a lack of civic-mindedness.
• prolepsis: /prō-LEP-səs/ n., the anticipation and answering of possible objections in rhetorical speech; the representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in, "He was a dead man when he entered."
• schadenfreude: /ˈSHä-dən-froi-də/ n., pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.
• tragelaph: /TRAJ-uh-laf/ n., a mythical creature which is part goat and part deer; also figurative: something composed of incongruous elements.

September 10 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
civility and incivism
/sə-VIL-ə-dē/ n., formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech, from late 14th century, "status of a citizen," from Old French civilite (14th century), from Latin civilis "relating to a citizen, relating to public life, befitting a citizen; popular, affable, courteous" (see civil). Later especially "good citizenship" (1530s). Also "state of being civilized" (1540s); "behavior proper to civilized persons" (1560s). Civility, and its converse, incivism, are often represented by metaphor, including good business, societal malaise, virtue and vice, a parting of the ways, related to love, a social contagion, a necessary ingredient for human relationships, and as a moral imperative. Here are the words of some noted authors who have given the subject some thought...

Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business.

P. T. Barnum

Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Charles Dickens

After our ages-long journey from savagery to civility, let’s hope we haven’t bought a round-trip ticket.

Cullen Hightower

Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms…but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters.

Robert A. Heinlein

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.

Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice

The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child.

John Irving

Congratulation, n. The civility of envy. 

Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary

Fortunately for you, we British judge man’s civility not by his compassion for his friends, but by his compassion for his enemies.

Dan Brown

Incivility is not a vice of the soul, but the effect of several vices; of vanity, ignorance of duty, laziness, stupidity, distraction, contempt of others, and jealousy.

Jean de La Bruyère

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

Samuel Johnson

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

Samuel Johnson

Perhaps the summary of good breeding may be reduced to this rule. “Behave unto all men as you would they should behave unto you.” This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

Henry Fielding

Left unattended, the incivility virus quickly becomes a social epidemic, at which point treating the behavioral symptoms is barely manageable.

Lew Bayer

Incivility is contagious—often spreading by way of righteous indignation until even those without legitimate grievance have come down with symptoms and taken sides.

Diane Kalen-Sukra

Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice

Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not.

Chinua Achebe

Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.

George W. Bush

There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Civility does not mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.

Mohandas Gandhi

So this is where civility comes from–from a sense of personal modesty and from the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation.

David Brooks

Be civil to all; serviceable to many; familiar with few; Friend to one; Enemy to none.

Benjamin Franklin

From A Year with Rilke, September 10 Entry
Fight Harmlessly, from Letter to Rudolf Bodlander, March 23, 1922

How gladly, my young friend, I would respond to your new leaflet; but here the words come hard to me. On the whole I want to acknowledge that you do well to approach this conflict as a matter intimately related to your own disposition. This is surely the most responsible attitude. You must only take care to eliminate from the tone you use all consternation and reproachfulness. My friend, this is important: fight harmlessly.

Battle of Flowers
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.






*The letter R.
~__________________________