Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, May 1, 2017)Word of the Day | |||||||
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discernible
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Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Mitigators vs. IntensifiersMitigators are the opposite of intensifiers, which are used to increase the intensity of the words they modify. "Very" is an example of an intensifier. What are some others? More... |
Article of the Day | |
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QuinceañeraThe Quinceañera is, in many Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas, the celebration of a young woman's fifteenth birthday and marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. In this latter respect, the Quinceañera is similar to the "sweet sixteen" or debutante ball of the English-speaking world. Observed differently in different countries, Quinceañera festivities range from modest religious ceremonies to lavish, wedding-style celebrations. What is the origin of the tradition? More... |
This Day in History | |
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Penny Black Is Issued in the UK (1840)Before the issuance of the Penny Black—the first adhesive stamp to indicate prepayment of postage—letters were commonly paid for by their recipients. Part of an effort to reform the antiquated British postal system, the stamp featured a profile of Queen Victoria. Because its dark background made cancellation marks hard to see and made reusing stamps quite easy, it was soon redesigned. To this day, all British stamps bear a profile of the reigning monarch and are the only stamps not to list what? More... |
Today's Birthday | |
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Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852)Considered one of the founders of neuroscience, Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish histologist and Nobel laureate. He devised a method of staining nerve tissue that allowed him to study the structure of the nervous system and make many important discoveries. In 1906, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi. Though he was a highly respected researcher in his adult years, he often got into trouble as a child and was imprisoned at the age of 11 for doing what? More... |
Quotation of the Day | |
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We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing. Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) |
Idiom of the Day | |
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Up to (one's) neck in alligators— business adage The full expression is some variation of: "When you are up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget that the goal was to drain the swamp." It is easy to be so overcome or preoccupied by various tangential worries, problems, or tasks that one loses sight of the ultimate goal or objective. More... |
Today's Holiday | |
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Vappu (2023)Vappu is a national holiday and celebration of the coming of spring in Finland. This traditional festival is also Labor Day, and factories that are said to "never close" do close on May 1 (and Christmas Day). For students, the "anything goes" celebration begins at midnight on the eve of May Day, called Vapunaatto, when they wear white student caps and indulge in anything not indecent or criminal. There are balloons, streamers, horns, and masks everywhere, and few get much sleep. On May Day itself, the students lead processions through the streets of Helsinki, and then enjoy carnivals and concerts. More... |
Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: notchcrenelation, crenelle - A crenelation (from Latin crena, "notch") is a series of indentations or loopholes around the top of a castle, battlement, or wall—with each indentation being a crenelle (or crenel). More... carf, kerf - A cut or notch in timber is a carf or kerf—which are also used to describe the width of such a cut. More... dent - As in "notch," it comes from the French word for tooth; its original meaning was "blow, stroke" in general. More... score - First a notch used to keep count, as on a stick. More... |