Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, October 22, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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unlettered
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Constructing Negative Interrogative SentencesAs with all negative sentences, we generally form the negative interrogative by adding the word "not." How do we know where to put "not" in the sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 MondegreensA mondegreen is a series of words that result from the mishearing of a statement or lyric, creating an often humorous new meaning for the original phrase. Perhaps one of the most famous mondegreens is the misinterpretation of the line "there's a bad moon on the rise" in Creedence Clearwater Revival's song "Bad Moon Rising" as "there's a bathroom on the right." The word "mondegreen" was coined in 1954 by writer Sylvia Wright and is itself a mondegreen. From what misheard phrase did it originate? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Metropolitan Opera House Opens with a Performance of Faust (1883)New York City's Metropolitan Opera House is the leading US opera company. It opened in 1883 after having been founded by a group of millionaires who had failed to get boxes at the prestigious and exclusive Academy of Music. The "Met" soon outshined its rival and is now considered one of the world's premier opera stages. Originally located at Broadway and 39th Street, it moved into the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1966. Who were among the Met's founding millionaires? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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%2c_Sarah-Benhardt.jpg) Sarah Bernhardt (1844)The illegitimate child of a courtesan, Bernhardt was encouraged to pursue a theatrical career by one of her mother's lovers. Her acting teachers did not consider her a particularly promising student, but they turned out to be sorely mistaken; Bernhardt went on to become the premier romantic and tragic actress of her day, touring all over the world during her six-decade career on stage and screen. What morbid possession may have helped "the Divine Sarah" reach her potential as a tragedienne? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspired.Homer (900 BC-800 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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outside the box— Outside of or beyond what is considered usual, traditional, or conventional. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Jidai Matsuri (2018)Jidai Matsuri is one of the three great festivals of Kyoto, Japan, commemorating the founding of the city as capital in the year 794. A procession of more than 2,000 costumed people depict the epochs or ages in Kyoto's history. They parade from the Imperial Palace to the Heian Shrine, which was built in the 18th century as a dedication to the emperors who established Kyoto as the capital. The capital was moved in 1868 to Tokyo, and the festival stems from that time. Among the paraders is one representing Gen. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a patron of the arts under whom Kyoto flourished. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: sweetheartvalentine - Formerly a person chosen as a sweetheart or special friend, named for either of two Italian saints. More... bully - First meant lover or sweetheart, then fine fellow, then blusterer, then "person who harms or threatens weaker people." More... leman - An old word for "sweetheart, lover." More... piggesnye - An old term of endearment for one's sweetheart, literally "a darling pig's eye." More... | |