Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, February 4, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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inveigh
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Auxiliary VerbsAuxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs) are verbs that add functional meaning to other "main" or "full" verbs in a clause. What are the three primary auxiliary verbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The XYZ AffairThe XYZ Affair was a 1797 diplomatic episode that worsened relations between France and the US and led to the undeclared Quasi-War of 1798. When the US signed a treaty with Great Britain in 1795, France perceived it as evidence of an Anglo-American alliance. The French responded by seizing hundreds of US ships bound for British ports. US President John Adams sent a delegation to negotiate peace, but communication stalled when the French agents demanded bribes. Who were X, Y, and Z? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Karen Carpenter Dies of Anorexia-Related Heart Failure (1983)Anorexia nervosa was a little-known disorder during Carpenter's life, but her death brought it lasting media attention. Performing alongside her brother Richard as half of the Carpenters duo, she had become a successful pop singer in the 1970s. Behind the scenes, however, her obsessive dieting and extreme weight fluctuations took a toll on her health, straining her heart. She succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 32. What is her husband said to have thrown into the casket at her funeral? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Rosa Parks (1913)An icon of the US civil rights movement, Parks is often portrayed as a tired, elderly African-American seamstress who was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, after deciding on the spur of the moment not to give up her bus seat to a white man. In reality, she was a fairly young woman who had been a civil rights activist long before her arrest, which sparked an unprecedented, successful boycott of the city's segregated bus system. How did Parks know the bus driver who had her arrested in 1955? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell...their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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(the good) Lord willing and the creek don't rise— rural If all goes as it should; if everything goes well. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Sri Lanka National Day (2018)The former British colony of Ceylon changed its name in 1972 to Sri Lanka, which means "Blessed Isle." Sri Lankans commemorate the granting of their independence from Great Britain on February 4, 1948, with public gatherings throughout the island and special services in the temples, churches, and mosques. There are also parades, folk dances, processions, and national games. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: rhetoricrhetor - A teacher of rhetoric or a master of it. More... climax - First described propositions in rhetoric, one rising above the other in effectiveness; it comes from Greek klimax, "ladder." More... demagoguery, demagogy - Demagoguery and demagogy are the practices or rhetoric of a demagogue. More... scheme - From Greek skhema, "figure, form," it first referred to a figure of speech, especially a figure of rhetoric, denoting a way of deviating from the ordinary use and order of words to create special effect. More... | |
| In the News | |
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Did Humans' Appetite for Eggs Drive this Giant Bird to Extinction?The daily ritual of preparing eggs for breakfast may date back almost 50,000 years. New research out of Australia lead by University of Colorado Boulder geology professor Gifford Miller may provide some of the first direct evidence that humans in Australia ... More... | |