Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, September 28, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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presumptuous
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Coordinating ConjunctionsCoordinating conjunctions are used to join two or more words, phrases, or independent clauses. The two elements being joined must be grammatically equal or similar in both importance and structure. How many coordinating conjunctions are there? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The FlâneurDerived from the French verb flâner, meaning "to stroll," a flâneur is one who walks without a destination. Refined by French poet Charles Baudelaire, the idea of the flâneur as a person who travels a city on foot in order to experience it has been embraced by thinkers in fields such as photography and urban planning. Disengaged yet aware, the flâneur wanders without any purpose except to observe without interacting. In Canadian French, what negative connotation does flâner carry? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Second Intifada Begins (2000)In 2000, Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque—a site holy to Muslims and Jews—in Jerusalem. Accompanied by soldiers, he claimed that Israel had sovereignty over this and other holy sites. His visit sparked riots that escalated into a new cycle of violence in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel. Israelis blamed Yasir Arafat—leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization—for Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. What is the estimated death toll from the violence? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Max Schmeling (1905)Schmeling was a German boxer who, in his greatest upset, knocked out future world heavyweight champion Joe Louis—then an unbeaten 22-year-old contender—in 1936. When they met again in a hugely hyped 1938 match, Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round. The rivals later became fast friends. When Louis died in 1981, Schmeling helped pay for the funeral. Though lauded as an Aryan idol in Germany, Schmeling was neither political nor racist. How did he save two Jewish children from the Nazis? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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spring fever— A feeling of often restless excitement or exuberance coinciding with the onset of warmer spring weather. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Confucius's Birthday (2025)This is a time to commemorate the birth of the teacher Confucius, perhaps the most influential man in China's history. In Qufu, Shandong Province, China, the birthplace of Confucius, there is a two-week-long Confucian Culture Festival. During the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, Red Guards defaced many of the buildings in Qufu. They have since been restored, and the festival held there attracts scholars from China and abroad. The festival opens with a ceremony accompanied by ancient music and dance and includes exhibitions and lectures on the life and teachings of Confucius. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: networkburele, burelage - A network of fine lines or dots, as on a postage stamp, is called burele or burelage. More... network - Traceable to the early 16th century, it indicates a web of connections that link objects, institutions, and/or people. More... limbic system - From Latin limbus, "edge," it is the network of the brain involving areas near the edge of the cortex and controls the basic emotions and drives. More... neural, neural network - Neural comes from Greek neuron, "nerve"; neural network can now refer to computer architecture in which processors are connected in a manner suggestive of connections between neurons. More... | |