Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, June 26, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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abdication
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Conjunctive AdverbsWhen we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb, we can use a period and keep them as two discrete sentences. If we choose to separate the two clauses with a period, though, what must we remember to do to the conjunctive adverb? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Electric ViolinThe traditional violin, predominantly played in orchestras and chamber music, was developed in Italy in the early 16th century. The electric violin arrived 400 years later, first appearing in the jazz music of the 1920s in the US. Many electric violins have a solid body designed to minimize feedback and are made with built-in pickups for amplification, while others are acoustic instruments that have been converted with electric components. Who are some of the musicians who use electric violins? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" Is Published (1948)Published by the The New Yorker the same month it was written, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" instantly became one of the most controversial stories ever run by the esteemed magazine. Hundreds of outraged readers cancelled their subscriptions or wrote letters expressing their confusion and anger over the story's meaning. Now considered a classic, the chilling story matter-of-factly describes an annual lottery in a bucolic American town in which one person is selected for what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Abner Doubleday (1819)Doubleday was a US Army officer who distinguished himself in the American Civil War. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter and saw action at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. He also served in the Mexican and Seminole Wars. He retired from the army in 1873 and wrote many articles, including two accounts of his war experiences, drawing on his 67 volumes of diaries. For years, accounts persisted that he invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. Did he? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Well, I really don't advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married.Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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odds and sods— An assortment of small, miscellaneous items, especially those that are not especially important or valuable. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Heidi Festival (2024)The town of New Glarus, Wisconsin, has celebrated the annual Heidi Festival since the 1960s. Founded in 1845 by immigrants from the Swiss canton of Glaurus, the town of New Glarus, Wisconsin, continued to attract Swiss immigrants over the years. Today it celebrates its cultural heritage in its yearly Volksfest and Heidi Festival. The Heidi Festival revolves around four performances of Heidi, Johanna Spyri's well-known play about a young Swiss shepherdess. The festival also includes opportunities to enjoy Swiss music, food, and dancing. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: intensityheat - As a preliminary race for a sporting contest, it is so called because of its intensity. More... crescendo - Often mistakenly used to mean "reaching a pinnacle" when, in fact, it should be used only to describe a gradual increase in intensity or volume. More... resonate, resound - Resonate means "to expand, to intensity, or amplify the sound of," whereas resound means "to throw back, repeat the sound of." More... fervency, fervor - The intensity of heat or feeling can be described as fervency, from Latin fervere, "boil"; an instance of this heat or feeling is fervor. More... | |