Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, August 28, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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scarecrow
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining AdjunctsAdjuncts are parts of a sentence that are used to elaborate on or modify other words or phrases in a sentence. Along with subjects, verbs, objects, and complements, adjuncts are one of the five main components of the structure of clauses. What is a distinguishing feature of adjuncts? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Wardian CasesThe forerunner of the modern terrarium, the Wardian case was a small glass container for housing ferns and similar plants. It was invented in 1829 by physician and amateur botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward after he noticed that, though the polluted London air was taking a toll on ferns in his garden, fern spores inside the glass bottles where he kept cocoons were germinating. His invention allowed plants to be shipped great distances and helped advance the Victorian craze for growing what flower? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Caleb Davis Bradham Begins Selling "Pepsi-Cola" (1898)Bradham was a pharmacist who invented a soft drink made with kola nut extract, vanilla, and "rare oils." He believed his drink aided digestion and renamed it "Pepsi-Cola" after the kola nut and pepsin, an enzyme that aids in digestion. In 1902, he incorporated the Pepsi-Cola Co, and, in 1931, the trademark and assets were bought by Charles Guth, who improved the formula and marketed a 12-ounce bottle for five cents with huge success. What did Bradham originally call his drink? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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.jpg) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749)Goethe was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist whose dramatic poem Faust is considered one of the world's greatest poetic and philosophic creations. In it, he represents Faust, the legendary scholar who sold his soul to the devil, tragically, as a singularly modern figure who is condemned to remain unsatisfied by life. In his later years, Goethe was celebrated as a sage and visited by world luminaries. Which of Goethe's novels is often called the first bildungsroman? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I am a lover and have not found my thing to love.Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the bigger they come, the harder they fall— Those who are exceptionally large, powerful, or influential will have more to lose when they fail, and their failure will be all the more dramatic or spectacular because of it. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tomatina (2019)Regardless of which legend one believes, what began in 1945 as a few tossed tomatoes as a show of disdain has developed into full-fledged tomato warfare in Buñol, Valencia, Spain, on the last Wednesday in August. Residents prepare for the impending food fight by protecting their storefronts and homes with plastic and donning special clothing. Thousands of pounds of tomatoes are trucked into town and dropped off at the Plaza del Pueblo, and the light-hearted battle commences. After the cleanup, celebrants continue to enjoy the festival's fireworks, parades, food, and music. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: hastyhasting, hasty - An early-ripening fruit or vegetable is a hasting and such a food that ripens early is termed "hasty." More... hasty pudding - An ancient dish of flour boiled in water to thick consistency, with milk or beer added afterwards. More... festinate, festination - If something is hasty or hurried, it is festinate, and to festinate is to walk fast, make haste; festination is "haste, speed." More... precipitous, precipitate - Precipitous, "hasty, sudden and dramatic," is used in relation to physical or natural objects; precipitate, "done with great haste," relates to human actions or processes. More... | |