Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, June 2, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Using En Dashes to Indicate a Range of ValuesThe most common use of the en dash is to connect two numbers, dates, or times to indicate a range that spans these figures. When it is used in this way, we can think of the en dash as representing what words? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 US President Grover Cleveland Gets Married in the White House (1886)Though President Cleveland entered the White House a notorious bachelor—having allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock—he did not remain single for long. Having become the executor of his deceased law partner's estate a decade earlier, Cleveland had supervised the upbringing of his partner's daughter, Frances. She visited him in the White House in 1885, and the two were married in the Blue Room a year later, making him the only president to be married there. He was how many years her senior? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
.png) The Marquis de Sade (1740)Described by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire as "the freest spirit that has yet existed," the Marquis de Sade was a French novelist and philosopher infamous for his wildly liberal lifestyle and erotic writings. The term "sadism" derives from his depictions of violent behavior, and he spent decades in prisons and insane asylums for his scandalous actions. How did he try to incite a riot at the Bastille, where he was imprisoned just days before it was stormed by French revolutionaries? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
mixed signal— A signal, message, or communication that has, or is interpreted as having, multiple, ambiguous, or contradictory meanings. (Often plural.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 St. Elmo's Day (2025)The day known as St. Elmo's Day is actually St. Erasmus's Day, in honor of a third-century Italian bishop who is thought to have suffered martyrdom around the year 304. Erasmus was a patron saint of sailors and was especially popular in the 13th century. Sometimes at sea on stormy nights, sailors will see a pale, brushlike spray of electricity at the top of the mast. In the Middle Ages, they believed that these fires were the souls of the departed, rising to glory through the intercession of St. Elmo. Such an electrical display is still referred to as "St. Elmo's Fire." More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: understoodtranspicuous - Describing something easily seen through or understood. More... passive vocabulary - Contains lexemes we know and understand but do no actively use (in writing or speech). More... scrutable - Describing that which can be understood through scrutiny. More... esoteric - Its root sense is "for the initiates of a religious mystery," and it means "confined to or understood by just a few people." More... | |