Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, December 23, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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prodigal
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Ellipses When Omitting Text from a QuotationThe most formal way ellipses are used is to indicate that some text has been omitted from a quoted sentence or passage. For what reasons would we omit text from a quotation? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Chancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the UK's senior finance minister and a member of the Prime Minister's cabinet. He oversees public spending across Government departments and frames the annual budget. The office, established under Henry III, is now considered one of the four Great Offices of State. As Second Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor's official residence is 11 Downing St, next door to the home of the First Lord of the Treasury. In 1997, who actually moved into Number 11? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Festivus (1997)The holiday of Festivus, celebrated on December 23, was popularized by an episode of the 1990s TV show Seinfeld. Unfulfilled by the year-end holidays, character Frank Costanza invents Festivus "for the rest of us." The centerpiece of Festivus is a plain, unadorned aluminum pole placed in a bucket of cement. One by one, attendees grab the pole and air their grievances, detailing how other people have disappointed them in the past year. What happens after this gripe session? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Madam C.J. Walker (1867)Thought to be America's first black female millionaire, this daughter of ex-slaves was orphaned at 7, working at 10, married at 14, and a widow with an infant at 20. She worked as a domestic and laundress and in her scant spare time developed a treatment to stop hair loss in African-American women and create smooth, shiny coiffures. She soon expanded her product line, and, by 1917, her cosmetics empire was the largest black-owned business in the US. Who took over the company when she died? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the butt of the joke— Someone or something at whose expense an insulting or mocking joke is made. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Japanese Emperor's Birthday (2018)This is a national holiday in Japan honoring the birth of Emperor Akihito (b. 1933). He and his family traditionally appeared on the Imperial Palace balcony to greet visitors invited to enter the grounds on the day. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: lawsautonomy - From Greek autos, "self," and nomos, "law," i.e. a person or unit that makes its own laws. More... blue sky laws - Laws protecting the public from securities fraud. More... code, codex - Code, from Latin codex, meaning "block of wood split into tablets, document written on wood tablets," was first a set of laws. More... constitute, constitution - Constitute can mean "make laws" and a constitution is a "how-to" document for a government or organization. More... | |