Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, December 17, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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remonstrate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Conjunctive Adverbs for Weak ContrastThere are two types of contrast that we can illustrate using conjunctive adverbs. One, known as "weak contrast," is when two clauses are opposing but are not complete opposites. For this type of contrast, we are limited to using only the weaker of the contrasting conjunctive adverbs. What are they? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Larping"Larping" is the act of participating in a live-action-role-playing game (LARP). Fiction and reality are blurred as "larpers" meet and play their games in person—though not as themselves, as fictional characters—in an artificially created or even imagined setting—somewhat like improvisational theater. Settings vary from historical to modern to fantasy. Event arrangers called gamemasters oversee the games, which can last days and include thousands of players. When was the first recorded LARP? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Wright Brothers Make Their Famous Flight (1903)Both excellent mechanics, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright built and repaired bicycles before turning their attention to flying machines. They spent years designing and testing gliders and also built a powerful four-cylinder engine and an efficient propeller. In 1903, after several failed attempts, the brothers succeeded in making the first controlled, sustained flights in a power-driven airplane. How long did the first, history-making flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, last? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (1706)The wife of a French marquis, du Châtelet defied convention in both her personal and professional life. She was a mathematician and physicist and wrote a number of scientific treatises as well as a translation of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. She had several extramarital affairs—the most enduring of which was with philosopher and writer Voltaire, who once described her as "a great man whose only fault was being a woman." How did she once think her way out of a gambling debt? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The music of life would be mute if the chords of memory were snapped asunder.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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lock (someone) up and throw away the key— To incarcerate someone in prison forever or indefinitely. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Newport Harbor Christmas Boat Parade (2024)The Newport Harbor Christmas Boat Parade is a nightly parade of boats at Newport Beach, California. More than 150 boats of all kinds, wildly decorated with lights depicting Santa Claus, snowmen, and other symbols of winter, join the parade. Some boats carry huge inflated figures, and many play music. The floating parades started in 1908 as a Fourth of July spectacular. In 1946, the city put a tree and carolers on a barge and towed it around the harbor, and that began the current December parades. Today, about a million spectators watch them during the festival. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: notchcrenelation, crenelle - A crenelation (from Latin crena, "notch") is a series of indentations or loopholes around the top of a castle, battlement, or wall—with each indentation being a crenelle (or crenel). More... carf, kerf - A cut or notch in timber is a carf or kerf—which are also used to describe the width of such a cut. More... dent - As in "notch," it comes from the French word for tooth; its original meaning was "blow, stroke" in general. More... score - First a notch used to keep count, as on a stick. More... | |