Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, January 25, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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InterjectionsAn interjection, also known as an exclamation, is a word, phrase, or sound used to convey an emotion such as surprise, excitement, happiness, or anger. What are primary interjections? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 GoitersA goiter is an enlargement of the thyroid gland that can lead to a prominent swelling in the front of the neck—sometimes nearly doubling its size. While the thyroid normally weighs 0.5 to 0.9 oz (15 to 25 g), goitrous thyroid glands can grow to more than 2 lb (1,000 g) and may interfere with breathing and swallowing and cause a choking feeling. A goiter can be caused by underproduction or overproduction of hormones, but endemic goiter, the most common type, results from a deficiency of what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Grand Rapids, Michigan, Becomes First US City to Fluoridate Its Water (1945)Around 1901, dentist Frederick McKay began to research why many Colorado residents' teeth were stained brown yet were also cavity-free. The culprit, as it turned out, was fluoride. Though it can discolor teeth in large doses, fluoride also prevents decay. Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first US city to experiment with adding fluoride to its water supply. The rate of cavities plummeted, and fluoridation became a national health policy. What do conspiracy theorists allege about fluoridation? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Anne of Brittany (1477)Upon her father's death in 1488, Anne became the sovereign duchess of Brittany—and her hand in marriage became very valuable. When she was forced to become queen of France by marrying Charles VIII at age 14, her marriage contract stipulated that whichever spouse survived the longest could keep Brittany. Charles died first, but Anne was then forced to marry his successor. Until her death, she fought in vain to preserve Brittany's autonomy within France. Who was technically her first husband? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.Henry James (1843-1916) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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keep in step with the times— To be, strive to be, or appear to be contemporary, fashionable, and/or relevant in modern times. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Burns Night (2021)Burns Night is the anniversary of the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns. The day is celebrated not only in Scotland but also in Newfoundland, and wherever there are devotees of this lusty poet. The celebrations generally take the form of recitations of Burns's poetry, the imbibing of quantities of single-malt Scotch whiskey, and the serving of haggis, a Scottish dish made of a sheep's or calf's innards (liver, heart, etc.) boiled in its stomach. At the point of the carving of the haggis, it is traditional to recite "To a Haggis," with its line, "Great chieftain o' the pudding race!" More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: spottedcheetah - Taken from Sanskrit citraka, "leopard," related to citra, "spotted, speckled, variegated." More... fleck - Of Scandinavian origin, it came from the adjective flecked, "spotted." More... piebald, skewbald - Piebald is being spotted with irregular patches of different colors, especially black and white; skewbald is spotted white and a color other than black. More... pinto - As in horse and beans, it is Spanish for "painted, mottled, spotted." More... | |