Word of the Day: hodiernal

hodiernal (adj) [HO-dee-URN-ul]

Of the present day.

"Credit me, fairest lady," said the knight, "that such is the cunning of our English courtiers of the hodiernal strain, that, as they have infinitely refined upon the plain and rusticial discourse of our fathers, which, as I may say, more beseemed the mouths of country roisterers in a May-game than that of courtly gallants in a galliad, so I hold it ineffably and unutterably improbable, that those who may succeed us in that garden of wit and courtesy shall alter or amend it."
--Sir Walter Scott, The Monastery: a Romance, 1820

The hodiernal era -- what shall we call it? The latter half of the 20th century was called the "post-war era", referring to World War II. We're a bit beyond that now, aren't we? I've heard it said that we are in a "post 9/11 era", but as earthshaking as that event was, I don't think it can define us for decade after decade. I suppose you could say we're in a second Elizabethan era, but that may be too specifically British a reference. Whatever we call the current times we're living through, they're obviously profoundly transitional. Call it the Age of Confusion. Strange daze indeed.