Rod's Word of the Day

Context: The Widening Gyre . The patch is not, as is often believed, a solid island of trash, by a gyre , twice the size of Texas, where wind and currents draw diffuse floating debris onto a vast carousel that never stops. Source: The Atlantic ; Feb. 4, 2019; p 42; The Widening Gyre . Gyre: (jīr). In oceanography, a gyre is any large system of circulating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements. A circular or spiral motion or form; especially, a giant circular oceanic surface current.

Context : Attempting to fish out this drifting morass of trash using conventional methods-vessels, more nets-would a Sisyphean task. Source : The Atlantic ; February 4, 2019; p 42, The Widening Gyre . Sisyphean : [ˌsisəˈfēən], ADJECTIVE (of a task) such that it can never be completed. Endlessly laborious or futile. Sisyphus: a legendary king of Corinth condemned eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top.

Word of the day: ebullience Context: This uproariously macabre tale unfold with an imaginative ebullience incorporating elaborate dream sequences and films-within-a film ....... Source: The New Yorker; Feb. 4, 2019; p 10 Ebullience: e·bul·lience [iˈbo͝olyəns, iˈbəlyəns] NOUN. The quality of being cheerful and full of energy; exuberance. Comment: This word I did not know but reading it in context I guessed that it was a synonymy for exuberance, and I was right. 

Word of the day: Manichean Context: His account also serves a corrective to much of the history that is written about modern American conservatism, which  tents to tell a tale of Manichean struggle, in which Goldwater conservatism eventually vanquished Rockefeller liberalism in the triumph of the Reagan revolution. Source: National Review; Feb 5, 2018; More than Ideology by Katherine Howell. Manichean: Man·i·chae·an, [manəˈkēən], (adjective) historical relating to Manichaeism. Manichean (noun), historical, an adherent of Manichaeism. Of or relating to a dualistic view of the world, dividing things into either good or evil, light or dark, black or white, involving no shades of gray. An adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark, matter being regarded as dark and evil. Manicheanism is an ancient reli...