Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, February 22, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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nostrum
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using "If Only" Instead of "Wish"To express a desire that is more fanciful, unrealistic, or that we consider to be ideal, we can use "if only" instead of "I wish" to add more emphasis to the desire. In this construction, what happens to the subjunctive verb? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 TechnophobiaTechnophobia—a fear of advanced technology—emerged alongside the mechanical innovations of the Industrial Revolution and became ever more pervasive as inventions ranging from the light bulb to the atomic bomb demonstrated technology's astounding capabilities. Mild technophobia is quite common—many experience it when facing an unfamiliar computer system at a new job. More acute technophobes see technology as inherently dangerous. What well-known novel was one of the first to tackle technophobia? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Adams-Onís Treaty: Spain Sells Florida to the US (1819)In the early 1800s, tensions between the US and Spain were increasing over border disputes in North America. With Spanish power in the New World declining, it was widely believed that Spain would lose land to the US. The Adams-Onís Treaty settled the dispute by attempting to draw clearer borders, roughly granting Florida and Louisiana to the US while giving everything west of Louisiana to Spain. The US did not pay Spain directly for the new land. Instead, it compensated Spain in what way? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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.png) Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857)Powell was a British army officer and founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, later the Girl Scouts. He was a hero of the South African War and author of Aids to Scouting, a military textbook. Upon learning that his book was being used to train boys in woodcraft, he wrote Scouting for Boys and established the Boy Scout movement in 1908. In 1910, with his sister and wife, he founded the Girl Guides. What disguise did Powell use while gathering information in war? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.Plato (427 BC-347 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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make matters worse— To make an already bad, unpleasant, or difficult situation even more so. (Sometimes used as an independent clause in the infinitive form: "to make matters worse.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Lucia Independence Day (2025)The West Indies island of St. Lucia celebrates its national independence holiday on February 22. On that day in 1979, the country gained full independence from Britain. St. Lucia had been a British Colony since 1814. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: pondlake - First meant pool or pond. More... nursery - Can be a pond in which fry are reared. More... tank - May have come from Gujarati tanku, or Marathi tanke, "underground cistern," from Sanskrit tadaga, "pond." More... pond - To pond is to accumulate water in a pond, which is really a small lake. More... | |