Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, January 3, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pretermit
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Proper AdjectivesProper adjectives, like all adjectives, modify nouns, but they are different from other adjectives because they are actually formed from proper nouns. A noun, we know, is a person, place, or thing. We can distinguish between two types of nouns: common nouns and proper nouns. What are proper nouns? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Khayr ad-Din BarbarossaBarbarossa was a 16th-century Greek-born Turkish corsair who terrorized the Mediterranean, raiding numerous coastal cities in Spain, Italy, and along North Africa's Barbary Coast. He offered allegiance to the Ottoman sultan in return for aid that enabled him to capture Algiers, which he then placed under Turkish control. He was made admiral of the Ottoman Empire, conquered Tunisia, and secured the eastern Mediterranean for the Turks for 33 years. How do Turkish seamen honor his memory today? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 NASA's Mars Polar Lander Launched (1999)The distance from Earth to Mars fluctuates between approximately 35 million mi (56 million km) and 63 million mi (101 million km). In 1999, NASA's Mars Polar Lander, on a mission to analyze soil samples, made the long journey to the Red Planet only to fail to re-establish communications following its entry into Mars's atmosphere. After the lander was declared lost, an investigation determined that it likely crashed onto the Martian surface. How long did it take the lander to reach Mars? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793)Mott was an American social reformer and women's rights advocate. She attended a Quaker boarding school near Poughkeepsie, New York, where she later taught, and became an official Quaker minister in 1821. She was active in the antislavery campaign and lectured widely on social reform. In 1848, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched the US women's suffrage movement. On what issue was Mott's stance at odds with that of the mainstream women's movement? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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feel like a million bucks— To feel exceptionally attractive or in very robust health. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Ball-Catching Festival (2025)This 500-year-old tradition, said to have its roots in the legend of a dragon god (Ryujin) offering two balls to the Empress Jingu (170–269), takes place each year in Higashi-Ku, Fukuoka City, Japan. Two teams of Japanese men, wearing only loincloths (fundoshi), compete for a ball that weighs about 18 pounds; these teams consist of the Land Team, made up of farmers who work the fields, and the Sea team, composed of fishermen. A Shinto priest awaits the winner to hand him the ball—the size of the harvest or of the catch during the new year is determined by which team wins. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: polishedfacetious - Originally meant "having polished or urbane manners," and, along with sequoia, uses all five vowels. More... nitid - A word for "bright, shining, polished, glossy." More... polite - Actually meant "polished" or "burnished" when it came into English. More... urban, urbane - Urban refers to a city; urbane means polished and smooth, as in a person's demeanor. More... | |