Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, January 11, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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bamboozle
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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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 NehushtanAccording to the Hebrew Scriptures, God sent poisonous serpents to bite the Israelites for speaking against him and Moses. When Moses prayed for help on the people’s behalf, God advised him make the Nehushtan—a bronze serpent set upon a pole—which would cure the snakebites of anyone who looked upon it. The Talmud asserts that it was not the act of looking up at the snake that cured victims but of looking up at God. Eventually, however, the Nehushtan became an object of worship. Who destroyed it? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First US Marshal Killed in the Line of Duty (1794)Born in Scotland, Robert Forsyth moved to America as a teen and distinguished himself in the Continental Army. After the Revolutionary War, he was appointed by US President George Washington to be the first US Marshal in the state of Georgia. Forsyth was serving in this capacity when he knocked at the door of Beverly Allen to serve him some court papers. The reluctant recipient shot Forsyth through the door, making him the first US Marshal killed in the line of duty. What happened to Allen? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Alice Stokes Paul (1885)A militant leader of the US suffrage movement, Paul is best remembered as the author of the Equal Rights Amendment. Written in 1923, the proposed constitutional amendment has been the source of nearly a century of legislative wrangling. While fighting for women's rights, Paul—who earned doctorate degrees in both sociology and law—picketed the White House, was imprisoned, and was force-fed after she staged a hunger strike. Paul was recently selected to appear on a US coin—in place of whom? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It does make a difference what you call things.Kate Wiggin (1856-1923) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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jolly (someone) up— To make (someone) happier or more cheerful; to cheer (someone) up. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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Jan1984.jpg) Burning the Clavie (2021)The Burning of the Clavie takes place in Burghead, a fishing village in the region of Moray, Scotland. Local residents make the clavie by sawing a tar barrel into a larger and smaller half, breaking the larger half into pieces and stuffing it inside the smaller half along with tinder and tar. At dusk, the Clavie King sets the clavie on fire and leads a procession through town to a high headland along the coast, where the flames ignite a huge bonfire. At the end of the festivities, townsfolk gather pieces of the clavie to light a New Year fire believed to keep witches and evil spirits away for a year. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: wavecomber, breaker, roller - A long curving wave is a comber, a wave that curls over and dissolves into foam is a breaker, and a long wave moving steadily shoreward is a roller. More... scend - As a noun, it is the surge of a wave or the sea; as a verb, it means to pitch or surge up in a heavy sea. More... undulate - From Latin unda, "wave." More... wave - Meaning "movement of the sea," it seems to be an alteration of the earlier wawe, "wave," from Old English woeg, "motion, wave." More... | |