Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, January 4, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pedestrian
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Articles and Uncountable NounsThe indefinite articles "a" and "an" cannot be used with uncountable nouns, which are nouns that cannot be divided or counted as individual elements or separate parts. Can uncountable nouns take the definite article "the"? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Thomas Paine's The Age of ReasonSocial agitator Thomas Paine was an influential political writer whose support of revolution and republican government emboldened the American colonists to declare independence from England. However, his reputation was irreparably harmed by one of his later writings, The Age of Reason. Published in the 1790s, it criticizes organized religion and espouses Paine's deist beliefs. Many people mistook it for an atheist tract and widely ostracized Paine thereafter. To whom was it dedicated? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Topsy the Elephant is Executed by Electrocution (1903)Topsy was a circus elephant at Coney Island's Luna Park. After killing three people—at least one of whom was mistreating her at the time—in as many years, she was deemed a threat and scheduled to be put down. After hanging was ruled out after being deemed too cruel, Thomas Edison suggested electrocution in an attempt to further his campaign to portray alternating current electricity as dangerous. Electrocuted with 6,600 volts, Topsy died in seconds. How many people witnessed the execution? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Jakob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785)More than just a compiler of fairy tales, Jacob Grimm was a German philologist who formulated the linguistic principle known as Grimm's law and who, along with his brother Wilhelm, began work on a vast historical dictionary of the German language that took over a century to complete. The Brothers Grimm are best known, however, for their compilation of some 200 German folk tales, known as Grimm's Fairy Tales, that helped establish the science of folklore. How did they collect the stories? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free.Edith Wharton (1862-1937) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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look (someone) off— In sports, especially American football, to mislead an opponent with one's eyes as to one's intentions in a given play. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.gif) Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (2023)The first native-born American to be declared a saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821) was canonized in 1975. She was the founder of the first religious community for women in the US, the American Sisters of Charity, and was responsible for laying the foundations of the American Catholic school system. Special services commemorating Elizabeth Ann Seton's death on January 4, 1821, are held at the Chapel of St. Joseph's Provincial House of the Daughters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the headquarters for her order of nuns. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: trousersfob - A small pocket close to the waistband of trousers. More... galluses - Another name for suspenders for trousers. More... plus fours - Got their name (c. 1920) from the fact that such trousers were made four inches longer than standard knickerbockers or shorts, which came to just above the knee. More... trousers, trouse - The singular of trousers is trouse. More... | |