Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, May 14, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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axiomatic
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Reflexive Pronouns as Direct Objects in the Middle VoiceMany middle-voice verbs are transitive verbs and therefore require a direct object in the form of a reflexive pronoun. Without a reflexive pronoun, what happens to the receiver of the action? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Aramaic AlphabetVirtually all modern Indian and Middle Eastern writing systems—as well as some from East and Southeast Asia—use a script that can be traced back to the Aramaic alphabet. Aramaic's influence on these writing systems can be attributed to its position as the official language of the Persian Empire and as the lingua franca—common language used among people of different mother tongues—of the Fertile Crescent. In the Aramaic alphabet, every character is a consonant. How are vowels formed? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Skylab Is Launched (1973)Launched into orbit in 1973, Skylab was the first US space station. It carried a laboratory for studying the human body's adaptation to weightlessness and a powerful solar telescope. Three successive astronaut crews conducted research aboard Skylab for a total of 171 days in 1973–74. Though Skylab was intended to be reused, increased solar activity caused its orbit to degrade faster than expected. In 1979, the 75-tonne station reentered Earth's atmosphere and broke up. Where did the debris land? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Charles Peace (1832)Peace was a notorious English burglar and murderer whose life spawned many romanticized works of fiction, including dozens of novels and films and even a comic strip. After stints in prison and a criminal career spanning decades, Peace was finally captured and imprisoned on charges of burglary and the attempted murder of a police officer. He was then tried for a past murder and was sentenced to death. Peace is mentioned by name in what Sherlock Holmes short story? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble ... Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.H.G. Wells (1866-1946) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a wild goose never laid a tame egg— Something will not be spontaneously different from that which came before. The phrase is used to describe things that are determined by nature and the environment, or else inherited from the generation before. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Dhungri Fair (2023)This is a festival celebrated by Hindu women from the hills near Manali, at the north end of the Kullu Valley in the Himachal Pradesh State of India. A small wooden temple known as the Hidimba (or Dhungri) Temple stands among cedar trees near Manali. The women gather here to honor the goddess Hidimba, who fell in love with Bhima and became his wife in the famous Hindu epic Mahabharata, with a traditional dance. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: mineraldiamond - Developed from adamant—the name of the hardest stone or mineral of ancient times—from Latin adamans, from Greek adamas, "invincible" (a-, "not," and daman, "to tame"). More... Formica - Got its name from being created as a substitute "for mica," a mineral. More... mineral - Etymologically "something obtained by mining," from Latin minera, "ore." More... snow - Technically a mineral, it is Teutonic in origin, from an Indo-European root shared by the Latin words niv-/nix and Greek nipha; the spelling snow first appeared in English around 1200. More... | |