Word-Wednesday for September 30, 2026

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 30, 2026, the thirty-ninth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of fall, the fifth Wednesday of September, and the two-hundred seventy-third day of the year, with ninety-two days remaining. Brought to you by Bead Gypsy Studio’s Fall Fest, Saturday October third, with the Kathi Nelson Trunk Show - treats, drawings, and many in-store sales. 101 Main Avenue North, Roseau, just across from Silver Dragon.


Wannaska Phenology Update for September 30, 2026
Wax Cap Fashion Show
Hygrocybe aurantiosplendens, otherwise known as waxy caps or wax caps, can now be seen on the Wannaskan forest runways strutting their sartorial stuff. Miskonadow in Anishinaabe, these brightly colored, gilled mushrooms with smooth stems have their taxonomy derived from the Greek ῦγρὁς (= moist) + κυβη (= head). Found throughout the world between the polar regions, wax caps are more commonly associated with woodland habitats or uncultivated grasslands. Europeans commonly collect and eat them, but Word-Wednesday does not advise you to do so.

September 30 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


September 30 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Still closed until further notice.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 30, 2026
Sunrise: 7:22am; Sunset: 7:06pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:35pm; Moonset: 12:42pm, waning gibbous, 82% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for September 30, 2026
                Average            Record              Today
High             60                     85                     70
Low              58                      21                     43

Late September
by Amy Lowell

Tang of fruitage in the air;
Red boughs bursting everywhere;
Shimmering of seeded grass;
Hooded gentians all a'mass.
Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind
Tearing off the husky rind,
Blowing feathered seeds to fall
By the sun-baked, sheltering wall.
Beech trees in a golden haze;
Hardy sumachs all ablaze,
Glowing through the silver birches.
How that pine tree shouts and lurches!
From the sunny door-jamb high,
Swings the shell of a butterfly.
Scrape of insect violins
Through the stubble shrilly dins.
Every blade's a minaret
Where a small muezzin's set,
Loudly calling us to pray
At the miracle of day.
Then the purple-lidded night
Westering comes, her footsteps light
Guided by the radiant boon
Of a sickle-shaped new moon.

September 30 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• Orange Shirt Day
• National Love People Day
• National Chewing Gum Day
• World Dense Breast Day
• National Women’s Health and Fitness Day
• National Hot Mulled Cider Day
• Blasphemy Day
• National Mud Pack Day
• International Translation Day

September 30 Word Pun
Sven can’t figure out his new compass. It came with no directions.


September 30 Word Riddle
What do you call a medieval spy?*


September 30 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
ENDEAR, v.t., To procure for yourself, or bestow upon another, the ability to do a favor.

    The friendship of Crocker I tenderly prize—
    I wear many kinds of his collars.
    He's endeared to my heart by the sacred ties
    Of a thousand accessible dollars.
                                    —Rare Ben. Truman


September 30 Etymology Word of the Week
silence
/SĪ-lən(t)s/ n., a complete absence of sound, noise, or spoken words, from circa 1200, "muteness, state of being or keeping silent, a forbearing from speech or utterance," from Old French silence "state of being silent; absence of sound or noise," from Latin silentium "a being silent," from silens, present participle of silere "be quiet or still," a word of unknown origin.

The meaning "absence of sound" in English is from late 14th century. The meaning "absence of mention" is from 1570s. Silence is golden (1831) is Carlyle's translation ["Sartor Resartus"] of part of the "Swiss Inscription" Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden.


September 30 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1199 Rambam (Maimonides) authorizes Samuel Ibn Tibbon to translate Guide of the Perplexed from Arabic into Hebrew.
• 1630 Massachusetts village of Shawmut changes its name to Boston.
• 1659 Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Daniel Defoe's famous novel).
• 1791 Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, premieres.
• 1846 Anesthetic ether is used for the first time by American dentist Dr. William Morton to extract a tooth.
• 1863 Opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers) by Georges Bizet premieres.
• 1895 Stephen Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage is published.
• 1908 Maurice Maeterlinck's play L'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird) premieres.
• 1935 George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess premieres.
• 1953 Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy premieres.

September 30 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1207 Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Persian poet.
• 1622 Johann Sebastiani, German baroque composer.
• 1627 Robinson Crusoe, English wayfarer.
• 1685 Gunther Jacob, Bohemian organist, composer.
• 1700 Stanisław Konarski, Polish poet
• 1743 Jeronymo Francisco de Lima, Portuguese composer.
• 1752 Justin Heinrich Knecht, German composer.
• 1800 Decimus Burton, British architect.
• 1824 Peter Milne, Scottish composer.
• 1833 Ferdinand von Saar, Austrian novelist, playwright and poet.
• 1840 Johan Svendsen, Norwegian composer.
• 1847 Wilhelmina Drucker [Lensing], Dutch feminist and writer.
• 1852 Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish organist, conductor, composer.
• 1856 Andrejs Jurjans, Latvian composer.
• 1857 Hermann Sudermann, German writer.
• 1862 Georgy Eduardovich Konyus (Conus), Russian composer,.
• 1871 Jan Fabricius, Dutch-English playwright.
• 1887 Oskar Brázda, Czech artist.
• 1898 [Julius] Johannes Rontgen, German Dutch composer.
• 1899 Hendrik Marsman, Dutch poet.
• 1904 Waldo Williams, Welsh poet.
• 1906 Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair [Eamonn O Gallagher], Irish composer.
• 1906 John I M Stewart [pseudonym Michael Innes], Scottish detective writer.
• 1907 Arnold Elston, American composer.
• 1908 Edzard Schaper, German author.
• 1912 Oliver Anderson, English novelist.
• 1919 Patricia Neway, American soprano.
• 1920 Ghazar Saryan, Armenian composer.
• 1921 Eileen Chang, Chinese-American writer.
• 1924 Truman Capote, American author.
• 1926 Peder Holm, Danish composer.
• 1927 Hossein Dehlavi, Persian composer.
• 1927 W. S. Merwin, American poet.
• 1928 Elie Wiesel, Romanian author.
• 1929 Carol Fenner, American author.
• 1931 Sahba Akhtar [Akhtar Ali Rehmat], Pakistani poet.
• 1932 Shintaro Ishihara, Japanese author.
• 1935 Luboš Fišer, Czech composer.
• 1936 Sevgi Soysal, Turkish author.
• 1937 Edith Kunhardt Davis, American children's book author.
• 1937 Jurek Becker, Polish writer.
• 1941 Os Guinness, Irish writer.
• 1950 Laura Esquivel, Mexican author.
• 1953 S.M. Stirling, Canadian-American author.
• 1955 Frankie Kennedy, Irish folk flute player.
• 1972 Ari Behn (né Bjørshol), Norwegian author.
• 1975 Jay Asher, American writer.
• 1975 Ta-Nehisi Coates, American author.
• 1980 Camilla D'Errico, Canadian comic book artist and painter.
• 1981 Cecelia Ahern, Irish author.

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

• aoibhneas: /EEV-nass/ n.,  IRISH, joy, happiness, bliss, or delight.
• bletting: /BLEH-ting/ n., the biological process of over-ripening and softening that certain fleshy fruits undergo in storage just before they begin to rot.
• callow: /KA-low/ adj., lacking adult sophistication; immature.
• cheechako: /chee-CHAH-koh /n., a slang term used in Alaska and the Yukon to describe a newcomer, beginner, or tenderfoot who has not yet survived a harsh northern winter.
• flamfew: /FLAM-fyoo/ n., 1. Moonlight reflected upon water; 2. A showy ornament or bauble.
• huther: /HUH-thur/ n., an occupational name for a herdsman, field guard, or guardian.
• lallation: /la-LAY-shun/ n., infantile baby talk; the babbling of a young child before articulate language develops.
• pither: /PIH-thər/ v., to do other things rather than the important task at hand.
• shoogly: / SHUUG-uh-lee / adj., unstable, wobbly; unsteady.
• smir: /smur/ n., a light, drizzly rain.

September 30, 2026 Word-Wednesday Feature
maxim
/MAK-səm/ n., a brief statement that expresses a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of behavior, from early 15th century, maxime, "an axiom, statement of a self-evident truth," from Old French maxime, from Late Latin maxima, shortened from phrases such as maxima propositio (Boethius), maxima sententarium "axiom," literally "greatest or chief premise, greatest among propositions" (one which is general and absolute), from fem. of maximus "greatest," from Proto-Indo-European mag-samo-, superlative form of root meg- "great." The modern meaning "summary statement of an established or accepted proposition serving as a rule or guide, a proposition ostensibly expressing some general truth" is from 1590s. For Minnesota, the classic maxim would be: Could be worse.

Once upon a time, during and before the days of Ben Franklin, one of the world’s best maximizers, some of the most enduring maxims now lead to eye-rolls in high school:

• Actions speak louder than words.
• Honesty is the best policy.
• The pen is mightier than the sword.
• Know thyself.
• The time is always right to do what is right.

On the historical road from maximizers to influencers, some tongue-in-check maxims became popular:

• Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. — Oscar Wilde
• The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure, and the intelligent are full of doubt. — Bertrand Russell

Here are a few maxims for the modern day:

• If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
• Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
• Half the people you know are below average.
• 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
• 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
• A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
• What doesn't kill you mutates and tries again.
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
• Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
• Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
• Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
• If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
• Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
• The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
• When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

As Earl Weaver said, “Everything changes everything.” Thank goodness we have our Sunday Squibs to appreciate each week here in Wannaska.


From A Year with Rilke, September 30 Entry
No Miracles, Please, from The Book of Hours II, 15

I would rather sense you
as the earth senses you.
In my ripening
ripens
what you are.

No miracles, please.
Just let your laws
become clearer
from generation to generation.

Avenue of Poplars in Autumn 
by Vincent van Gogh

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.







*Sir Veillance.