Word-Wednesday for July 15, 2026

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 15, 2026, the twenty-eighth Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of summer, the third Wednesday of July, and the one-hundred ninety-sixth day of the year, with one-hundred sixty-nine days remaining.


Wannaska Phenology Update for July 15, 2026
Blueberries
Vaccinium myrtilloides (velvet leaf) and Vaccinium angustifolium (lowbush) are now bearing pickable fruit in Wannaskaland. Miin (singular), miinan (plural) in Anishinaabe, feature prominently in this people's tradition. July is traditionally known as Miini-giizis, which translates directly to the "Blueberry Moon". Blueberries spiritually symbolize protection, wisdom, and resilience. Often called "star berries" in Indigenous folklore because of the five-pointed star on their blossom end, they are viewed as gifts of abundance and healing.

July 15 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


July 15 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Still closed, until further notice.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 15, 2026
Sunrise: 5:39am; Sunset: 9:23pm; 1 minutes, 56 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 6:56am; Moonset: 10:28pm, waxing crescent, 3% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for July 15, 2026
                Average            Record              Today
High             78                     99                     75
Low              57                     35                     62

Summer
by Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,
I went out to see
The frog, for example,
in her satiny skin;
and her eggs
like a slippery veil;
and her eyes
with their golden rims;
and the pond
with its risen lilies;
and its warmed shores
dotted with pink flowers;
and the long, windless afternoons;
and the white heron
like a dropped cloud,
taking one slow step
then standing awhile then taking
another, writing
her own soft-footed poem
through the still waters.

July 15 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Hot Dog Day
• National Gummi Worm Day
• National Give Something Away Day
• National I Love Horses Day
• Social Media Giving Day
• National Pet Fire Safety Day
• St. Swithin’s Day

July 15 Word Pun
Sven lost my Monique’s audiobook, and now he’ll never hear the end of it.


July 15 Word Riddle
What do cows do before they eat?*

a Chairman Joe original

July 15 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
LAPIDATE, v.t., To rebuke with stones. St. Stephen, for example, was lapidated like a Chinaman.

    Lamented St. Steve,
    What Christian can grieve
    For the way that you came to your death?
    For the monument fair
    Of memorial stones
    Was reared in the air
    O'er your honored bones
    Ere yet you'd relinquished your breath.
    No doubt as your soul exhaled
    You were thanked by resolution;
    For the builders' design had failed
    Except for
    your execution. execution in italics


July 15 Etymology Word of the Week
monad
/MŌ-nad/ n., a single unit; the number one, from 1610s, "unity, arithmetical unit," 1610s, from Late Latin monas (genitive monadis), from Greek monas "unit," from monos "alone" (from Proto-Indo-European root men- "small, isolated"). In Leibnitz's philosophy, "an ultimate unit of being, a unit of the universal substance" (1748); he apparently adopted the word from Giordano Bruno's 16th century metaphysics, where it referred to a hypothetical primary indivisible substance at once material and spiritual. 


July 15 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 971 According to legend, English saint Swithun is reburied inside Winchester Cathedral against his wishes, and a terrible storm proceeds to rain for 40 days and 40 nights.
• 1799 The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta.
• 1869 Margarine is patented by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès for use by the French Navy.

July 15 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1573 Inigo Jones, English architect.
• 1606 Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch painter and etcher.
• 1638 Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Italian composer.
• 1700 Johann Christoph Richter, German composer.
• 1745 Friedrich Benda, Czech musician.
• 1778 Henry Joseph Monck Mason, Irish writer.
• 1779 Clement Clarke Moore, author.
• 1796 Joseph Augustine Wade, Irish composer.
• 1802 John Barnett, English composer.
• 1818 Heinrich Esser, German violinist, conductor, and composer.
• 1847 William Ludwig, Irish opera singer.
• 1849 Moritz Heuzenroeder, German pianist and composer.
• 1851 Eduardo Gutiérrez, Argentinian author.
• 1870 Ernest Walker, British composer.
• 1871 Doppo Kunikida, Japanese journalist, author, and poet.
• 1875 Jean van den Eeckhoudt, Belgian painter.
• 1877 Nina Salaman (née Pauline Davis), British Jewish poet, author.
• 1878 Willem Paerels, Dutch-Belgian painter and graphic artist.
• 1879 Joseph Campbell, Irish writer, poet.
• 1884 Enrique Soro, Chilean composer.
• 1887 Wharton Esherick, American artist and sculptor.
• 1898 Noel Gay [Reginald Moxon Armitage], British composer.
• 1898 Norman Demuth, British composer.
• 1901 John Wesley Work III, African-American composer.
• 1901 Pyke Koch, Dutch magic realism painter.
• 1904 Dorothy Fields, American lyricist.
• 1906 R. S. Mugali, Indian poet.
• 1910 Ronald Binge, British composer.
• 1911 Juliet Pannett, English portrait painter.
• 1913 Abraham Sutzkever, Yiddish language poet.
• 1913 Hammond Innes, English author.
• 1917 Robert Conquest, English poet.
• 1919 Iris Murdoch, Irish novelist.
• 1922 Jean-Pierre Richard, French writer.
• 1926 Driss Chraïbi, Moroccan author.
• 1926 John Lambert, English composer.
• 1928 Pál Benkő, Hungarian-American author.
• 1929 Charles Anthony [Caruso], tenor.
• 1931 Clive Cussler, American writer.
• 1933 Guido Crepax, Italian author and illustrator.
• 1933 M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Indian author.
• 1934 Harrison Birtwistle, British contemporary classical composer.
• 1945 Notis Mavroudis, Greek composer.
• 1949 John Arthur Casken, British composer.
• 1949 Richard Russo, American novelist, short story writer.
• 1950 Arianna Huffington, Greek-American author.
• 1961 Jean-Christophe Grangé, French mystery writer.

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

• aperçus: /a-pər-So͞o/ n., a comment or brief reference that makes an illuminating or entertaining point.
• clepe: /kleep/ v., to call, name, or refer to someone or something.
• glump: /glump/ n., a gloomy, ill-tempered, sulking old crank; v., to sulk.
• hoise: /hoiz/ v., to raise or lift something, especially by means of ropes, pulleys, or mechanical force.
• mazily: /MAY-zuh-lee/ adv., in a confused or convoluted manner; as if in a maze.
• perjink: /pər-JIŋK/ adj., Exact, precise, extremely accurate.
• snuggery: /SNUHG-uh-ree/ n., a comfortable or cozy room.
• suzerainty: /So͞o-zə-rān-tē/ n., a position of control by a sovereign or state over another state that is internally autonomous.
• vernissage: /ver-ni-SAHZH/ n., a private preview or opening event for an art exhibition, traditionally held before the public opening and often attended by artists, critics, collectors, and invited guests.
• wimick: /WIM-ik/ v., to cry or whimper.

July 15, 2026 Word-Wednesday Feature
backronym
/BAK-rə-nim/ n., an acronym deliberately formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to create a memorable name or as a fanciful explanation of a word's origin, etymologically, a portmanteau of back and acronym, coined in 1983 by Meredith G. Williams to describe reverse-engineered acronyms. The U.S. Military is all-in on acronyms, but not backronyms.

Sometimes a backronym is reputed to have been used in the formation of the original word, and amounts to a false etymology or an urban legend. Acronyms were rare in the English language before the 1930s, and most etymologies of common words or phrases that suggest origin from an acronym are false. Examples include posh, an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class, where a popular story derives the word as an acronym from "port out, starboard home", referring to nineteenth-century first-class cabins on ocean liners, which were shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east (e.g. from Britain to India) and homeward voyages west. Similarly, the distress signal SOS is often believed to be an abbreviation for "save our ship" or "save our souls" but was chosen because it has a simple and unmistakable Morse code representation – three dots, three dashes, and three dots [··· ——— ···], sent without any pauses between characters.

Please feel free to put your own backronym in the comment section. Here are but a few famous backronyms:

• DELTA: Passengers famously claim it stands for Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport or Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive.
• EPCOT: Every Parent Comes Out Tired
• FORD: Often roasted by rival car owners as Found On Road Dead or Fix Or Repair Daily or fatto oggi, rotto domani.
• FIAT: Playfully spun as Fix It Again, Tony
• GROSS: Get Rid Of Slimy girlS (Calvin and Hobbes)
• LOTUS: Jokingly referred to as Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious
• MERIT: Men Elevated Regardless Individual Talent
• NERF: Non-Expanding Recreational Foam
• PINTO: Put In New Transmission Often
• RALPH: Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners.
• SCHOOL: Seven Cruel Hour Of Our Lives
• SCUBA: While it represents Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, users on Reddit suggest it secretly stands for Some Come Up Barely Alive
• SHERLOCK: Sherlock Holmes Enthusiastic Readers League Of Criminal Knowledge
• SPECTRE: Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (James Bond)
• SVEN: Sez Vat Ever Nonsense
• TIME: The International Magazine of Events
• TUBA: Terrible Underwater Breathing Apparatus
• WOMBAT: Waste Of Time And Money

From A Year with Rilke , July 15 Entry
Bodily Delight, from Worpswede, July 16, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet

If only people could perceive the mystery in all life, down to the smallest thing, and open themselves to it instead of taking it for granted. If only they could revere its abundance which is undividedly both material and spiritual. For the mind's creation springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only a lighter, more enraptured and enduring recapturing of bodily delight.

Green Apples
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.






*They say “Graze.”