Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, March 10, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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asseverate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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MitigatorsMitigators are adverbs or adverbials that modify adjectives and adverbs to reduce their intensity, making them seem less extreme or powerful. What is the difference between mitigators and intensifiers? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 NüwaIn Chinese mythology, Nüwa is a figure variously described as a creator deity or a repairer of heaven and Earth, especially after a calamity. Nüwa is said to have created mankind by fashioning individuals out of clay. When the process became too arduous, she began to simply flick bits of clay off the end of a rope. These differing methods of creation have been used to explain the distinction between nobles and commoners. How did Nüwa prevent the sky’s collapse after a pillar supporting it broke? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 French Foreign Legion Founded (1831)The French Foreign Legion is a unit of the French Army largely composed of foreigners and commanded by French officers. It was created by King Louis Phillipe in 1831 to keep potential dissidents busy fighting for France rather than against it. Because enlistment historically required no official identification, many criminals joined under assumed names to hide their unsavory backgrounds. What are the two ways foreign-born legionnaires can earn the right to apply for French citizenship? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (1844)Sarasate was a Spanish violinist and composer. He began studying the violin with his bandmaster father at age five, and at his first public concert at age eight, he impressed a wealthy patron and was sent to study in Madrid. There, Queen Isabel II gave him the Stradivarius violin that he would play for the rest of his life. He made his Paris debut in 1860 and commenced touring the world. He wrote scores of brilliant virtuoso works, some of which are still played today. Where are his violins now? 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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be on (one's) conscience— To be a persistent cause or source of guilt, such as an act of wrongdoing. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Shwedagon Pagoda Festival (2020)The people of Myanmar celebrate their local pagodas or temples on the full moon day in the month of Tabaung (February-March in the Gregorian calendar). The largest celebration is held at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the former capital city of Myanmar. Visitors to the pagoda take the opportunity to make offerings and to pray. This ancient temple, which is more than 2,500 years old, is 300 feet tall and has a dome covered in gold and precious jewels. The dome, with its two tons of gold and more than 5,000 diamonds, glitters so brightly that it can often be seen by airplanes flying overhead. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: zeroaught - Another word for "nothing, zero." More... zero, cipher - Zero and cipher come from Arabic sifr, "nought, zero," from Sanskrit sunya, "empty." More... lay an egg - The egg in "to lay an egg" refers to "zero." More... googol - Coined when mathematician Edward Kasner asked his nephew to create a word for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. More... | |