{"id":829,"date":"2020-01-16T15:34:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T14:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=829"},"modified":"2020-01-16T15:34:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T14:34:41","slug":"season-xvi-alphaday-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/season-xvi-alphaday-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Season XVI &#8211; Alphaday 7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hi\nAlphas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome\nto Alphaday 7, Season XVI: the first Alphaday of 2020. We\u2019re now in the 3<sup>rd<\/sup>\nweek of the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> decade of the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> millennium and I hope\nthis auspicious convergence of the lucky number 3 will bring fulfilment of your\nhopes for the future on all levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re\npicking up the Alpha threads after our mid-season break, and \u2013 with renewed\nenergy (yes?) \u2013 preparing to re-immerse ourselves in all things writerly. With\nthat in view, the Alpha team has been busy lining up a mouth-watering agenda\ncrammed full of the goodies we all enjoy. As follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alphaday 7, Season\nXVI agenda:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>This\n     bulletin from me<\/li><li>The\n     results of the 100<sup>th<\/sup> birthday diary challenge from Martin<\/li><li>The\n     collated entries for the pantomime challenge from Maria<\/li><li>A\n     call for entries to the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> edition of the Open Page from Elke<\/li><li>A\n     call for contributions to the next Alpha Log from Phil<\/li><li>A\n     Writers\u2019 Reads prompt from Genya<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That\nlooks like an excellent assortment to me, and thank-yous are due to all those\nwho helped prepare it. That includes every one of you, of course, as challenge\nentries and feedback are fundamental to our agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nAlpha Group has entered the new decade with amazing ease \u2013 as if there was\nnothing to it. We enjoy the stability of the group where everyone knows what\nthey can give and what they can get by taking part. The best of all possible\nworlds \u2026 if you like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out\nthere \u2013 in the big world \u2013 it\u2019s a different story. There are so many big issues\nto tackle. This is obvious wherever you look \u2013 even in our writers\u2019 tools, i.e.\nwords. To illustrate this I\u2019ve been looking at \u2018The word of the year 2019\u2019 as\nchosen by experts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\none that\u2019s flagged up everywhere was nominated by the much esteemed Merriam\nWebster Dictionary. Now that\u2019s American, you may object. Yes, but in the\nEnglish-speaking (or Anglophone) world it represents a much larger population\nthan the tiny minority of English-speakers in Great Britain. That\u2019s a fact.\nBesides, their choice of \u2018Word of the year\u2019 is the pronoun \u2018they\u2019 used as a\nsingular pronoun when referring to a non gender-specific subject. This is\nsomething I\u2019ve mentioned, as you may remember. It also draws attention to the\nworld-wide issues related to gender equality in all contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nGreat Britain my favourite is the Oxford Dictionary \u2013 having two of them on the\nshelf right in front of me (Concise and Etymology). Their \u2018word of the year\u2019 is\n\u2018climate emergency\u2019 which replaced \u2018climate change\u2019 \u2013 a shift that speaks\nvolumes, the way I see it. Runners-up were \u2018flight shame\u2019 and \u2018plant-based\u2019. If\nthere\u2019s a trend in all this, I think it\u2019s a commendable one. Communication and\nawareness of the main issues around us can only point in the right direction. Words\ncan shape the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 7, Season XVI: the first Alphaday of 2020. We\u2019re now in the 3rd week of the 3rd decade of the 3rd millennium and I hope this auspicious&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}