Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, May 28, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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girth
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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PhrasesGrammatical phrases are groups of two or more words that work together to perform a single grammatical function in a sentence. What is an appositive phrase? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The NutcrackerThe Nutcracker, a celebrated ballet by Tchaikovsky, tells the story of a young girl whose Christmas gift of a nutcracker turns into a prince and leads her to a magical land. In 1954, George Balanchine choreographed and premiered his New York City Ballet version, which was later made into a feature film. Mikhail Baryshnikov choreographed another enormously popular version for the American Ballet Theatre. What novel instrument did Tchaikovsky use in the Nutcracker score? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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_-_The_Last_Supper_(1495-1498).jpg) The Last Supper Back on Display after Two-Decade Restoration (1999)By the 1970s, Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century mural masterpiece, The Last Supper, was badly deteriorated. Italian officials then undertook a major restoration project to permanently stabilize the painting and reverse the damage. The painting's original form was determined using original sketches and scientific tests, including infrared reflectoscopy and microscopic core-samples. The restoration took 21 years, and the painting was put back on display in 1999. Where is it located? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Thomas Moore (1779)Moore was an Irish poet who achieved prominence in his day not only for his poetry but also for his love of Ireland and personal charm. He is remembered today for Irish Melodies, a group of lyrics published between 1808 and 1834 and set to music by Sir John Stevenson and others. Moore was friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, and his biography of Byron is among his best prose works. Byron left Moore his memoirs, but Moore later destroyed them. Who persuaded him to do it? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.George Eliot (1819-1880) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have (a) skeleton(s) in (one's)/the closet— To have (an) embarassing, unpleasant, damaging, or incriminating secret(s) from one's past. Primarily heard in US. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Big Singing (2017)Big Singing in Benton, Kentucky, brings together more than 100 singers trained in the tradition of shape-note singing. Together they enjoy a communal picnic lunch and spend the day singing hymns written in an almost-extinct style of musical notation called shape notes. A book titled The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion increased the popularity of this kind of singing in 19th-century America. The Big Singing in Benton dates back to 1884; it is currently sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of Southern Harmony Singing. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: recalllethologica - If you cannot recall the precise word for something, you have a case of lethologica, which may lead you to an obsession with trying to recall it—loganamnosis. More... remember - From Latin rememorari, "recall to mind." More... reduce, reduct - Reduce first meant "bring back or recall in memory" or "take back or refer (a thing) to its origin," from Latin reducere, "lead back"; reduct means "simplify." More... tartle - From Scottish, to hesitate in recognizing a person or thing, as happens when you are introduced to someone whose name you cannot recall; so you say, "Pardon my tartle!" More... | |