Word-Wednesday for October 14, 2026

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 14, 2026, the forty-first Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of fall, the second Wednesday of October, and the two-hundred eighty-seventh day of the year, with seventy-eight days remaining.


Wannaska Phenology Update for October 14, 2026
Cattails Sailing
Typha is a taxonomy genus name for about 30 species of monocotyledonous /mah-nuh-kah-tuhl-EE-duh-nuhs/ flowering plants in the family Typhaceae, aka, cattails for Wannaskans and apakweshkway for Anishinaabe. The British call them bulrush and reedmace, the Australians call them cumbungi, and New Zealanders call them raupō.

The numerous male flowers form a narrow spike at the top of the vertical stem. Each male (staminate) flower is reduced to a pair of stamens and hairs, and it withers once the pollen is shed. Large numbers of tiny female flowers form a dense, sausage-shaped spike on the stem below the male spike. The seeds are minute, 0.2 mm (0.008 in) long, and attached to fine hairs. When ripe, the heads disintegrate into a cottony fluff from which the seeds disperse by wind.

The seed hairs were used by some indigenous peoples as tinder for starting fires. Some tribes also used Typha down to line moccasins and for bedding, diapers, baby powder, and cradleboards. One Native American word for Typha meant "fruit for papoose's bed". Typha down is still used in some areas to stuff clothing items and pillows. It can be dipped in wax or fat and then lit as a candle, the stem serving as a wick. Without the use of wax or fat, it will smolder slowly, somewhat like incense.

October 14 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


October 14 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Still closed until further notice.


Earth/Moon Almanac for October 14, 2026
Sunrise: 7:42am; Sunset: 6:37pm; 3 minutes, 29 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 12:34pm; Moonset: 8:03pm, waxing crescent, 16% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for October 14, 2026
                Average            Record              Today
High             52                     78                     50
Low              33                     16                     41

Now
by Barbara Crooker

What can l say, now that summer’s gone, with the weight of its heat,
its thick blanket of humidity, the cacophony of zinnias, marigolds, salvia?
Now the sky is clear blue and cloudless, that sure one-note
that can only mean October. You’re gone. The leaves turn gold
in the calendar’s rotisserie, giving up their green, and the burning bushes
have ignited, struck their book of matches. It’s enough to make the heart break,
isn’t it? We keep going down the one road, there’s no turning back.

October 14 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Dessert Day
• National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work/School Day
• National Emergency Nurses Day
• National Be Bald and Free Day
• National Curves Day
• National Take Your Parents to Lunch Day
• National Stop Bullying Day
• World Standards Day

October 14 Word Pun
Sven lost weight by just wearing bread on his head.

It was a loaf-hat diet.


October 14 Word Riddle
What did Roman emperors use to cut their hair?*


October 14 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
GENTLEWOMAN, n., The female of the genus Gentleman. The word is obsolete, gentlewomen, for no fault of their own, being now "ladies."

    The wretch who first called gentlewomen ladies,
    Being first duly hanged, arrived at Hades
    Where, welcomed by the devils to their den,
    He bowed and said: "Good morning—gentlemen."


October 14 Etymology Word of the Week
zombie
/ZÄM-bē/ n., a lifeless, will-less human corpse reanimated by supernatural, voodoo, or science-fiction forces, though the word also describes an exhausted person, a cocktail, or terms in technology and economics, from also zombi, jumbie, 1788, possibly representing two separate words, one relating to the dead and the other to authority figures such as U.S. presidents, but if so historically these were not kept distinct in English-speaking usage. The oldest attested sense in English is "'spirits of dead wicked men [...] that torment the living.'" The sense of "reanimated corpse" is by 1929, introduced in the work of William Seabrook who observed this sense as a uniquely Haitian concept. The word usually is said to be of West African origin (compare Kikongo zumbi "fetish" and djumbi "ghost"). A sense of "slow-witted person" is recorded from 1936.

It also is attested from 1819 as a title for a chief, in an Afro-Brazilian context. This is said to be directly from the Angolan (Kimbundu) nzambi, "deity." The meaning "witch" is attested by 1910, that of "deity" is by 1921. Grand Zombi as the name of a deity in Voodoo practices is in English by 1904. Zombi was also used as a name for pets in 19th century.


October 14 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1834 First African-American granted a US patent, Henry Blair, for a corn planter.
• 1892 Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of 12 stories originally published serially in The Strand Magazine.
• 1893 George Edwarde's Gaiety Girl premieres.
• 1924 Arnold Schoeberg's opera Die Gluckliche Hand premieres.
• 1926 A. A. Milne's book Winnie the Pooh is released.
• 1930 George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin's musical Girl Crazy, starring Ginger Rogers and featuring the debut of Ethel Merman, opens.
• 1956 Charles Ives' overture Robert Browning premieres.
• 1958 Brendan Behan's play The Hostage premieres.
• 1964 Martin Walser's play Der Schwarze Schwan premieres.
• 2014 Richard Flanagan's novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North wins the 2014 Man Booker Prize.
• 2019 Booker Prize awarded jointly to Margaret Atwood for The Testaments and Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other.

October 14 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1425 Alesso Baldovinetti, Italian painter.
• 1563 Jodocus Hondius, Flemish engraver.
• 1569 Giambattista Marino, Italian poet.
• 1641 Joachim Tielke, German violin maker.
• 1730 Jean-Joseph Rodolphe, Alsatian composer.
• 1738 Giovanni Zanotti, Italian composer.
• 1753 Franz Anton Dimmler, German composer.
• 1764 Charles-Henri Plantade, French composer.
• 1790 Georg Gerson, Danish composer.
• 1796 Adolf Ganz, German composer.
• 1800 John Hogan, Irish artist.
• 1814 Thomas Davis, Irish writer.
• 1824 Adolphe Monticelli, French painter.
• 1853 Ciprian Porumbescu, Romanian composer.
• 1855 George Edwardes, British composer.
• 1859 Camille Chevillard, French composer.
• 1861 Bjarni Thorsteinsson, Icelandic organist, composer.
• 1864 Maurice de Plessys, French poet.
• 1867 Masaoka Shiki, Japanese haiku & tanka poet.
• 1871 Alexander von Zemlinsky, Austrian composer.
• 1871 Alexander von Zemlinsky, Austrian composer.
• 1874 Margarete Susman, German-Jewish writer.
• 1880 Vilhelm Ekelund, Swedish poet and writer.
• 1888 Ernest Pingoud, Finnish composer.
• 1888 Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand author.
• 1889 Jean Canneel, Flemish sculptor.
• 1891 František Lydie Gahura, Czech sculptor.
• 1894 E. E. Cummings [Edward Estlin], American poet.
• 1908 Ruth Hale, American playwright.
• 1909 Kalervo Tuukkanen, Finnish composer.
• 1915 Douglas Rutherford, Irish writer.
• 1942 Peter Nadas, Hungarian novelist and playwright.
• 1943 Anthony Iannaccone, American composer.
• 1949 Katha Pollitt, American poet and writer.
• 1954 Václav Patejdl, Czech composer.
• 1988 Ocean Vuong [Vương Quốc Vinh], Vietnamese-American poet.

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

• bannock: /BA-nuhk/ n., a dense, flat, and usually unleavened or quick-baked bread that originated in Scotland and later became a deeply rooted staple in Indigenous North American.
• bicker: /BI-kr/ v., 1. to have a petty quarrel, squabble, to engage in petulant or peevish argument, to wrangle; 2. to run rapidly, move quickly, rush, hurry; to flicker, glitter; n., a skirmish or quarrel; any wooden dish or bowl, esp. a wooden porridge bowl.
• caliche: /kuh-LEE-chee/ n., a hardened layer of soil or sediment cemented together by precipitated minerals, most commonly calcium carbonate, often used in landscaping.
• fadoodle: / fa-DOO-duhl / n., nonsense; something foolish or ridiculous; a trifle/nothing
• fraktur: /frak-TOOR/ n., a style of German blackletter typography or a decorated Pennsylvania German folk art document.
• mendacity: /men-DAS-ə-dē/ n., untruthfulness; lying.
• phaeton: /FĀ-ə-tən/ n., any of various light four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicles.
• stoup: /sto͞op/ n., a basin for holy water, especially on the wall near the door of a Roman Catholic church for worshipers to dip their fingers in before crossing themselves; a flagon or beaker for drink.
• verset: /VUR-set/ n., a short verse from a sacred text, a brief musical piece, a poetic stanza form, or an affordable fragrance brand.
• vorfreude: /VÔR-froid/ n., GERMAN, the joyful anticipation that results from imagining future pleasures.

October 14, 2026 Word-Wednesday Feature
hobo
/HŌ-bō/ n., a North American migrant worker who travels from place to place by hopping freight trains to find seasonal or odd jobs, from "a tramp," 1889, Western U.S., of unknown origin. Barnhart compares early 19th century English dialectal hawbuck "lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin." Or possibly from ho, boy, a workers' call on late 19th century western U.S. railroads. Facetious formation hobohemia, "community or life of hobos," is from 1923 (see bohemian).

Synonyms include: 

• beggar
• bindle stiff
• bum
• bummer
• derelict
• dodger
• drifter
• gamine
• malingerer
• mendicant
• panhandler
• ragamuffin
• roamer
• shirker
• slacker
• stiff
• sundowner
• swaggie
• swagman
• tramp
• transient
• urchin
• vagabond
• vagrant
• waif

These pejorative synonyms miss the Bohemian character of the hobo's community, which included women hobos. Among the most famous:

• Boxcar Bertha Thompson: A Great Depression-era labor organizer, member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and freight-hopper, her supposed life story was told in the 1937 autobiography Sister of the Road.
• Kittie Solomon: Affectionately known as the "Queen of the Hobos," she was a prominent female transient writer and activist within the International Brotherhood Welfare Association (IBWA) during the early 20th century.
• Ethel Lynn: Author of the 1917 memoir The Adventures of a Woman Hobo, detailing a 2,000-mile cross-country journey by bicycle, wagon, and freight train with her husband.
• Hobo Lump (Qadhosh Ajda): A historic and well-known figure in hobo culture who was a four-time Hobo Queen crowned at the annual national hobo convention in Britt, Iowa.

And yes, along with the national hobo convention comes The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889 — a set of fifteen guidelines established by migrant workers—often associated with Tourist Union #63—emphasizing personal independence, mutual aid, respect, and community survival:

1. Personal Autonomy: Decide your own life; do not let another person rule you.
2. Respect the Law: Always respect local laws and officials when you are in town.
3. Protect the Vulnerable: Do not take advantage of children, women, or other vulnerable people.
4. Seek Labor: Always look for work, and accept temporary or unwanted jobs rather than begging.
5. Create & Provide: If unemployed, create craft work or trade value instead of idling.
6. Avoid Drunkenness: Do not drink excessively; it brings shame and danger to the community.
7. Conserve Handouts: Respect charity and do not abuse food or supply distribution.
8. Respect Nature: Keep camp "jungles" clean and leave nature undamaged.
9. Contribute to Camp: Do your fair share of work in communal hobo camps.
10. Maintain Hygiene: Keep yourself clean and presentable.
11. Respect Freight Trains: Ride trains carefully and honor the safety of the line.
12. Respect Train Crews: Treat railroad workers and yard authorities with respect.
13. Aid Runaways: Help runaway children and guide them back home safely.
14. Help Fellow Hobos: Always look out for and assist fellow travelers on the road.
15. Testify in Hobo Court: Participate honestly if internal community disputes arise.

They even had their own symbolic code for those that hadn’t yet learned how to read.

From A Year with Rilke, October 14 Entry
The Open, from the Eighth Duino Elegy

With their whole gaze
animals behold the Open.
Only our eyes
are as though reversed
and set like traps around us,
keeping us inside.
That there is something out there
we know only from the creatures' countenance.

We turn even the young child around,
making her look backward
at the forms we create,
not outward into the Open.

Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Gardanne
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.







*Julius Scissors.