Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, November 3, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
tune-up
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Defining Object ComplementsSometimes a verb is not complete with only a direct object, especially when that direct object is a person. More information about the object's relationship with the verb is required to form a complete thought. This additional information is known as the "object complement." Without an object complement, what question are we left asking about the direct object? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Vanishing HitchhikerTold across the world in many variations, the vanishing hitchhiker story is a popular urban legend whose most common version involves a lone motorist who picks up a hitchhiker. This hitchhiker later vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle. The driver eventually tracks down the hitchhiker's relatives only to learn that the person in question died long ago. In other versions of the legend, the hitchhiker predicts a future disaster. What are some early examples of the tale? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Christopher Columbus First Sights the Caribbean Island of Dominica (1493)On the first Sunday in November 1493, Christopher Columbus spotted a mountainous island between Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea. Ignoring the fact that its Carib inhabitants already had a name for the island, Columbus renamed it Dominica, the Latin name for the day of the week on which he spotted it. The Caribs managed to resist Spanish efforts to colonize the island but were unable to fend off the British and French. When did Dominica finally gain its independence? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Walker Evans (1903)Evans was an American photographer known for his stark photos of the rural South during the Great Depression, taken for the Farm Security Administration. In 1936, Fortune magazine sent Evans and writer James Agee to document poverty in rural Alabama. The magazine rejected their work, but the two used the material for their landmark 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. A 2005 Fortune article revealed that some of their subjects were upset about the book for what reasons? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
a night out— An evening spent having an enjoyable time away from home, as in a restaurant, theater, bar, or other such locations. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Feast of St. Hubert de Liège (2021)St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters, dogs, and victims of rabies. His feast day is especially honored at the church named for him in the town of St. Hubert, Luxembourg Province, Belgium, on the first weekend in November. People who live in the Forest of Ardennes bring their dogs to the church to be blessed, and St. Hubert's Mass marks the opening of the hunting season. In some places, special loaves of bread are brought to the mass to be blessed, after which everyone eats a piece and feeds the rest to their dogs, horses, and other domestic animals to ward off rabies. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: sleepingcubicle - Originally a small room for sleeping—from Latin cumb, "lie down"—that was separated from a larger room. More... breakfast - Literally means "breaking the fast"—of the night, as it is the first meal after sleeping. More... dormition - A peaceful and painless death, as well as the act of sleeping or falling asleep. More... incubate, incubation - Latin incubare, the source of incubate, literally meant "lie down on"; incubation once had the sense of sleeping in a sacred place or temple for oracular purposes. More... | |