Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, January 7, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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prehensile
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Subjunctive MoodThe subjunctive mood refers to verbs that are used to describe hypothetical or non-real actions, events, or situations. What is the subjective mood most commonly used to express? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916In the summer of 1916, thousands flocked to the New Jersey shore to seek relief from the polio epidemic and severe heat wave plaguing the northeastern US. As WWI raged in Europe, the vacationers watched for German U-boats that were reportedly maneuvering off the coast, but they were unaware of a different danger lurking beneath the water's surface—sharks. Between July 1 and July 12, sharks attacked 5 people along the Jersey coast, killing 4. What are some theories about why the attacks occurred? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Galileo Galilei Discovers Three of Jupiter's Four Largest Moons (1610)Jupiter has more than 60 moons. The four largest—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—were the first satellites of a planet other than Earth to be detected. They were discovered by Galileo in 1610, shortly after he invented the telescope, and are therefore known as the Galilean satellites. On January 7, 1610, Galileo observed near Jupiter what he described at the time as "three fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness." How long did it take Galileo to realize they were not stars? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Zora Neale Hurston (1891)An anthropologist, folklorist, and author, Hurston spent much of her life collecting African-American folktales in the rural South and in other places, such as Haiti, Bermuda, and Honduras. She was a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance and collaborated with her friend Langston Hughes on the play Mule Bone in 1931. Along with her folklore collections, she also wrote four novels, including the influential Their Eyes Were Watching God. Why did the book inspire controversy? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 See them clamber, these nimble apes! ... Towards the throne they all strive: it is their madness—as if happiness sat on the throne! Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne—and ofttimes also the throne on filth.Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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good going— An informal expression of praise for having done something well. (It can also be used sarcastically to mean the opposite.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.png) Distaff Day (2018)After the 12-day Christmas celebration ended on Epiphany, St. Distaff's Day was traditionally the day on which women resumed their chores, symbolized by the distaff, a tool used in spinning flax or wool. It was also called Rock Day—"rock" being another name for the distaff. The "spear side" and the "distaff side" were legal terms used to distinguish the inheritance of male from that of female children, and the distaff eventually became a synonym for the female sex as a whole. Distaff Day was not really a church festival, but it was widely observed at one time in England. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: recentAmazonian epoch - The Amazonian epoch is the most recent of the Martian geologic epochs, from 1,800 years ago to the present. More... grey, gray - The distinction in spelling between British grey and American gray is recent, popping up in the 20th century. More... Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene, Oligocene - Epochs indicating periods in the Earth's geology; Pleistocene means "most recent," Pliocene means "more recent," Miocene means "moderately recent," and Oligocence means "but a little recent." More... neoteric - Used to describe a person, especially an author, it means one belongs to modern/recent times—but it might also refer to a person having a modern outlook or new ideas; when used of things, it indicates that they are modern, new, or recent. More... | |