Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, March 31, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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spiteful
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Indicating Possession in Non-Plural Words and Names Ending in "-s"There are two ways that we can indicate possession in non-plural words and names that end in "-s". Some writers prefer to treat them like plurals and simply add an apostrophe to the end, leaving out the second "-s." Other writers choose to add a second "-s" after the apostrophe to create the usual singular possessive form. As both forms are generally accepted, how do many writers choose between them? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 MethuselahIn the Bible, the patriarch Methuselah is the grandfather of Noah and is said to have lived to the age of 969. As such, his name has become synonymous with longevity. Since the very oldest modern-day humans reach an age only approximately one eighth of Methuselah's, numerous theories have arisen to explain why he is said to have lived so long. One postulates that an ancient mistranslation resulted in the accidental inflation of his age when what two words were mixed up? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Daylight Saving Time Adopted as Law in the US (1918)Daylight saving time (DST) is the system of advancing clocks forward one hour near the start of spring to increase "usable" hours of daylight in the afternoon. Though Benjamin Franklin proposed the idea in 1784, DST was not widely adopted until World War I. It was first used in Western European countries like Germany and England, and Newfoundland became one of the first North American jurisdictions to adopt DST in 1917. The US followed suit a year later. Which two US states do not observe DST? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 César Chávez (1927)As the child of Mexican-American migrant laborers, Chávez spent his childhood in a succession of migrant camps, attending 65 different elementary schools. After a two-year stint in the Navy, he returned to migrant farm work and, in 1962, began organizing the largely Latino farmworkers of Arizona and California. A charismatic figure, he used strikes and nationwide boycotts to win union recognition and contracts from California grape and lettuce growers. How long did the first strike last? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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silver surfer— An elderly person who is a proficient user of the internet. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Malta Freedom Day (2022)In 1814, Malta became a crown colony of the British empire. Although Malta gained independence in 1964, the British armed forces did not completely leave until March 31, 1979. This freed Malta of foreign military occupation for the first time in history. In Malta, Freedom Day is a public holiday that commemorates the day the last of the British military left the Maltese Islands. On this holiday, a ceremony is held at the War Memorial in Floriana. The main events of the day take place around the Freedom Day Monument in Vittoriosa. In the afternoon, a competitive regatta is held in Grand Harbour. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: pinkpink - If you pink your eyes, you half-shut them. More... in the pink - Comes from the English foxhunting tradition; people who foxhunt often wear scarlet jackets and are called pinks—so if you are in the pink, you are about to set off to gallop your horse across country. More... incarnadine - Can mean "flesh-colored or pink," but also "crimson, blood-red." More... pink - The color gets its name from the flowering plant of the same name. More... | |