Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, March 25, 2023)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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demigod
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Comma SplicesA comma splice occurs when we join two independent clauses with a comma. Why can't we use a comma in this situation? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 GulagThe Gulag was a system of forced-labor prison camps in the USSR, from the Russian acronym for the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps, a department of the Soviet secret police. It was first established under Lenin during the early Bolshevik years and ultimately included 476 camp complexes. The system reached its peak after 1928 under Stalin, who used it to maintain the Soviet state by keeping its populace in a state of terror. Whose book publicized the gulag system to the Western world? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Kills 146 (1911)The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a clothing manufacturer that occupied the top three floors of a 10-story building in New York. In 1911, a small fire flared up in a dustbin on the 8th floor and quickly spread. Tragically, a number of doors had been locked by management to prevent theft, and fire truck ladders only reached the 6th floor. Dozens of workers jumped to their deaths to escape the conflagration, while others burned alive. What sweeping safety reforms were prompted by the disaster? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Mary Flannery O'Connor (1925)O'Conner was an American writer, considered a master of the short story form and the Southern Gothic style. In stories that reflect her strong Catholic faith, her often grotesque characters are placed in extreme situations that impel them toward redemption. O'Conner spent most of her life on her mother's farm in Georgia, where she died of lupus at the age of 39. When she was just six years old, she became a minor celebrity for teaching a chicken to do what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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more haste, less speed— Acting too quickly and without due diligence, focus, and attention to detail will result in avoidable mistakes and thus require even more time to complete the task satisfactorily. (The logic of the phrase is essentially "too much haste results in less overall speed.") Primarily heard in UK. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Maryland Day (2025)Maryland Day commemorates the landing of the first colonists there in 1634, and the first Roman Catholic Mass they celebrated. Named after Henrietta Maria, the consort of King Charles I of England, Maryland was the first proprietary colony on the American mainland. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was appointed by the king as proprietor, and he hoped to establish a refuge for other Catholics who had been persecuted in Anglican England. He was succeeded as head of the colony by his son, Cecilius Calvert, who brought 200 more colonists over from England. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: nourishmentfoster - Comes from the Germanic base for "food" and it originally meant "food, nourishment." More... inanity, inanition - Inanity is intellectual or spiritual emptiness; inanition is the lack of nourishment. More... meat - First meant "food, nourishment"—especially solid food as opposed to drink. More... nourishment - Wine or spirits given medicinally can be called nourishment. More... | |