Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, February 10, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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housebound
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using the Future Perfect ContinuousThe future perfect continuous tense is used in a very similar way to the future perfect to describe the duration of a completed future action. They both carry the same meaning when used in this way, but the future perfect continuous emphasizes what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 BioacousticsBioacoustics is the study of the relation between living organisms and sound, focusing on the neurophysiological, anatomical, and evolutionary basis of sounds produced and detected by animals, especially those involved in communication. It was established as a scientific discipline by Slovene biologist Ivan Regen, whose experiments with crickets in the early 20th century proved that insects respond to acoustic stimuli produced by other individuals. What animal sounds are humans unable to hear? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 General Tom Thumb Marries Lavinia Warren (1863)General Tom Thumb, born Charles Sherwood Stratton, began touring with circus pioneer P.T. Barnum in 1843 at the tender age of four. Stratton's short stature—he was a mere 3 feet, 4 inches (102 cm) tall when he died—and his comedic impersonations made him an international hit. His courtship of Lavinia Warren, another one of Barnum's performers, led to a fashionable New York City wedding in 1863, and the pair was later received at the White House. Stratton died in 1883. What marks his grave? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Boris Pasternak (1890)Pasternak was a Russian author whose novel Doctor Zhivago, an epic of wandering, spiritual isolation and love amid the harshness of the revolution and its aftermath, became a bestseller in the West but was circulated only in secrecy in the Soviet Union until 1987. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, but he was forced to decline it because of Soviet opposition to his work. Why was Pasternak's name said to have been crossed off an execution list by Joseph Stalin? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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bare (one's) teeth— To display an angry, violent, and/or threatening reaction to or against something or someone, as does a dog or wolf when threatened. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of St. Paul's Shipwreck (2023)This feast is a commemoration in Malta of the shipwreck of St. Paul on the island in 60 CE, an event told about in the New Testament. When storms drove the ship aground, Paul was welcomed by the "barbarous people" (meaning they were not Greco-Romans). According to legend, he got their attention when a snake bit him on the hand but did him no harm, and he then healed people of diseases. Paul is the patron saint of Malta and snakebite victims. The day is a public holiday, and is observed with family gatherings and religious ceremonies and processions. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: orchestrawind band - A band of wind instruments or a collective term for the wind instruments of an orchestra. More... first chair - The premier musician playing a particular instrument in an orchestra—seated closest to the audience, taking the lead for that instrument's movements, and playing any solos. More... first violin - Leads the orchestra and plays notes in a higher range than second violins; parts for the first violin usually have more of the main tune and are technically more difficult to play. More... orchestra - The earliest senses of orchestra were "the semicircular area for the chorus to dance in an ancient Greek theatre" and the art of dancing itself (from Greek orkheisthai, "to dance"). More... | |