Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, December 21, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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rectitude
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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When Not to Use a HyphenThe most common use for the hyphen is to join multiple words to create compound words. However, adverbs ending in "-ly," as well as the adverb "very," do not take a hyphen in compound constructions. Why not? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Celestial SpheresThe concept of a spherical Earth was introduced by the ancient Greeks in the 6th century BCE. Hypotheses about its place in the universe soon followed. Ancient Greek philosophers imagined our motionless planet at the center of the universe, with all the celestial bodies revolving around it in a series of nested, concentric spheres. That theory dominated astronomy until the advent of the Sun-centered Copernican system in the 16th century. According to Aristotle, what moved each planet's sphere? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Marie and Pierre Curie Discover Radium (1898)Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie were working with pitchblende, a heavy mineral known to contain the radioactive element uranium, when they noticed something unusual. Somehow, the pitchblende was more radioactive than the uranium it contained. The culprit was radium, a previously unknown element present in pitchblende only in trace amounts—yet more than a million times more radioactive than uranium. What common household products contained radium until it was discovered to be dangerous? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Samuel Leroy Jackson (1948)Jackson is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 movies since making his feature film debut in the 1970s, and he claims to have seen every one of his films in theaters alongside paying customers. He is best known for his role as a philosophical hit man in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. In 2006, he decided to star in the film Snakes on a Plane based solely on its title. What other film did Jackson agree to appear in without reading the script? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is not right to glory in the slain.Homer (900 BC-800 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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make a long arm for (something)— To extend one's arm fully toward something; to reach out for something. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of Juul (2024)The Feast of Juul was a pre-Christian festival observed in Scandinavia at the time of the Winter Solstice. Fires were lit to symbolize the heat, light, and life-giving properties of the returning sun. A Yule (or Juul) log was brought in with great ceremony and burned on the hearth in honor of the Scandinavian god Thor. A piece of the log was kept as both a token of good luck and as kindling for the following year's log. The present-day custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas is believed to have originated in the bonfires associated with the Feast of Juul. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: specializingcreperie - A restaurant specializing in crepes. More... abandannad - A pickpocket specializing in bandannas or handkerchiefs. More... cinematheque - A small movie theater specializing in art or classic films. More... academic press - Also called a university press; a publishing house associated with a university or other scholarly institution, specializing in the publication of scholarly books and journals, particularly works written by its faculty. More... | |