Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, December 26, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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nuzzle
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Creating Adverbs of MannerAdverbs of manner are used to tell us how something happens or is done. They are very often formed from adjectives by simply adding "-ly," but sometimes, the spelling of a word will have to change slightly so as to better accommodate the extra "-ly." If the adjective ends in "-ic," for instance, what does the ending become? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Billie HolidayAffectionately known as "Lady Day," Billie Holiday is considered one of the greatest vocalists in jazz history as well as one of its most tragic figures. Known for her haunting rendition of the song "Strange Fruit," Holiday began singing professionally in 1930 and embarked on a successful solo career in 1940. However, Holiday's drug and alcohol addiction and abuse at the hands of men took a toll on both her health and her voice, and she died in 1959 at the age of 44. What was her real name? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Largest Mass Execution in US History (1862)Though the US government and the Sioux concluded several treaties during the first half of the 19th century, relations had deteriorated by 1862 when a Sioux uprising killed more than 800 white settlers and soldiers in Minnesota. Military tribunals convicted 303 Sioux prisoners of murder and rape and sentenced them to death. US President Abraham Lincoln commuted most sentences, but the public hanging of 38 prisoners was still the largest mass execution in US history. What became of the bodies? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780)Somerville became an accomplished science writer at a time when women's involvement in the sciences was generally discouraged. She earned widespread recognition for her 1831 translation of Pierre-Simon Laplace's five-volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics), a project she undertook for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which aimed to adapt scientific material for the rapidly expanding reading public. What term was coined in a review of one of her other works? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof...Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief...in the greatness of one's country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance of one's personal affairs, and in the interesting nature of one's diseases.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the rabbit died— The woman to whom we are referring is pregnant; the pregnancy test was positive. (From an early pregnancy test developed in 1931 in which the urine of a woman thought to be pregnant was injected into a female rabbit; if the woman was pregnant, the rabbit's ovaries would react. A common misconception at the time was that the rabbit would die if the woman was pregnant, hence the expression.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Boxing Day (2018)The term "Boxing Day" comes from the little earthenware boxes that servants, tradespeople, and others who rendered services to the public used to carry around on the day after Christmas to collect tips and year-end bonuses. The name has remained, and Boxing Day is still observed in England, Canada, Australia, and many other nations. In South Africa, it is known as the Day of Good Will. If December 26 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the following Monday or Tuesday is usually observed as a public or Bank Holiday. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: poorcacography - Bad handwriting or poor spelling. More... illegible, unreadable - Illegible refers to bad handwriting, while unreadable refers to poor writing. More... heterography, inorthography - Incorrect or poor spelling is heterography or inorthography. More... | |