Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, May 24, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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chattel
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Pronunciation Changes with NominalizationWhen creating nouns, there are instances in which, instead of changing a word's spelling, we change where we pronounce a stress on the word's syllables to indicate a shift from a verb to a noun. What is this change known as? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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.jpg) PersephoneIn Greek mythology, Persephone is the goddess of fertility and, having been taken captive by Hades and made his wife, queen of the underworld. Though Hades eventually allowed her to return to Earth, he first tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds—the food of the dead—thus tethering her to the underworld and making it necessary for her to return to him for several months each year. What changes are said to come over the Earth each time she leaves for or returns from the underworld? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 USSR Begins Drilling World's Deepest Hole (1970)The Kola Superdeep Borehole project was an attempt to dig as far as possible into the Earth's crust. It began when, in 1970, following setbacks in the Space Race, Soviet scientists looked downward. Digging on the remote Kola Peninsula for some 20 years, they reached a depth of 40,230 feet (12,262 m)—about a third of the way through the Earth's crust—before being forced to stop due to higher-than-expected temperatures of 350° F (180° C). Surprisingly, water was found at what depth? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Joseph Brodsky (1940)Soon after Brodsky began writing poetry in the USSR in the 1950s, he was accused by the government of "social parasitism" and sentenced to hard labor. Exiled in 1972, he settled in New York and began writing in English. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1987 and was poet laureate of the US for a time. His poetry, with its themes of loss and exile, is highly regarded for its intensity, depth, and wit. What was his retort when a Soviet judge once asked him, "Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?" More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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memory lane— A set or series of memories of one's past life, likened to a roadway that one may visit or take a tour of. (Used primarily in the phrase "stroll/take a trip/walk etc. down memory lane.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bulgarian Culture Day (2025)This Bulgarian national holiday promotes Bulgarian culture and honors two brothers, St. Cyril (c. 827-869) and St. Methodius (c. 815-844), missionaries to Moravia. They are believed to have invented the Slavonic alphabet, also known as the Cyrillic alphabet. Special religious services, concerts, festivals, and student parades are held throughout Bulgaria on this day, which is also known as Saints Cyril and Methodius's Day, and Day of the Founders of the Slavonic Alphabet. An impressive liturgy, celebrated at the cathedral in Sofia, is one of the highlights. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: tennisdrop shot - In tennis, it is so called because after it is hit, it drops abruptly to the ground. More... cachpule - The ancestral name for tennis or a tennis court. More... service game - In tennis, a game in which a particular player serves. More... tennis - From French tenez, "take, receive," which was originally called out by the server to the opponent. More... | |