Word of the day: eschatology

The word of the day is eschatology:

< Greek ἔσχατο-ς last + -λογία discourse: see -logy comb. form; compare French eschatologie.

Theol.

a. The department of theological science concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’.

 b. In recent theological writing, esp. as ‘realized eschatology’ (see quot. 1957), the sense of this word has been modified to connote the present ‘realization’ and significance of the ‘last things’ in the Christian life. (OED)

"There's agony in its scanning eye, its tiny
filtering teeth set in that gaping mouth, caught perversely
wide, a universal fellatio, opened to make it look more
than a shark enough; and even science will realize
that it's undead, its "ka" and "ba" fixed and lost
in equal measure, the flow of fluid not even providing
an optical illusion, no "weighing of the heart" beyond
the heartlessness of curiosity, eschatology of display."

 - John Kinsella, "Megamouth Shark", 7 March 2011 The New Yorker

Word of the day: ba

The word of the day is ba:

ba, in ancient Egyptian religion, with the ka and the akh, a principal aspect of the soul; the ba appears in bird form, thus expressing the mobility of the soul after death. Originally written with the sign of the jabiru bird and thought to be an attribute of only the god-king, the ba was later represented by a man-headed hawk, often depicted hovering over the mummies of kings and commoners alike.  (Encyclopaedia Britannica)


"There's agony in its scanning eye, its tiny
filtering teeth set in that gaping mouth, caught perversely
wide, a universal fellatio, opened to make it look more
than a shark enough; and even science will realize
that it's undead, its "ka" and "ba" fixed and lost
in equal measure, the flow of fluid not even providing
an optical illusion, no "weighing of the heart" beyond
the heartlessness of curiosity, eschatology of display."

 - John Kinsella, "Megamouth Shark", 7 March 2011 The New Yorker

Word of the day: ka

The word of the day is ka:

The name given by the ancient Egyptians to a spiritual part of a human being or a god which survived after death and could reside in a statue of the dead person. (OED)


"There's agony in its scanning eye, its tiny
filtering teeth set in that gaping mouth, caught perversely
wide, a universal fellatio, opened to make it look more
than a shark enough; and even science will realize
that it's undead, its "ka" and "ba" fixed and lost
in equal measure, the flow of fluid not even providing
an optical illusion, no "weighing of the heart" beyond
the heartlessness of curiosity, eschatology of display."

 - John Kinsella, "Megamouth Shark", 7 March 2011 The New Yorker

Word of the day: screed

The word of the day is screed:

Variant of shred n., repr. Old English scréade; compare S n.¹

 I.

 1.   a. A fragment cut, torn, or broken from a main piece; in later use, a torn strip of some textile material. Also collect. sing. Obs. exc. dial.

b. A strip of land; a parcel of ground.

c. An edging, a bordering strip; the border or frill of a woman's cap. dial.

 2. fig.

 a. A long roll or list; a lengthy discourse or harangue; a gossiping letter or piece of writing. 

b. A piece, portion (of a literary work). 

3. Plastering.

  a. An accurately levelled strip of plaster formed upon a wall or ceiling, as a guide in running a cornice or in obtaining a perfectly even surface in plastering; a strip of wood used for the same purpose. More generally in Building, a level strip of material formed or placed on any surface (e.g. a floor or a road) as a guide for the accurate finishing of it. Also, a levelled layer of material forming part of a floor or other horizontal surface.  II.

4. Sc.  [ < the verb.] A rent, tear. Also fig. ? Obs.  

5. Sc. A sound as of the tearing of cloth; hence, ‘any loud, shrill sound’ (Jamieson).

"Megamouth, so rare it wasn't recorded
as science until 1976, daytime deep dweller
off the continental shelf to rise at night to a lesser
depth, to graze screeds of plankton we barely
register?"

 - John Kinsella, "Megamouth Shark", 7 March 2011 The New Yorker


I guess the image is that the plankton is like a scrap of cloth?  Or is it more an emphasis on the length, trying to say that there are a lot of plankton?