Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, November 30, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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empennage
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Colons with DialogueThe colon is used in written dialogue between two or more people, most often in transcripts of plays or legal testimony in a courtroom. We place the colon immediately after the name of the speaker, and the dialogue that follows is written without what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Human BrandingHistorically, human branding—the practice of burning marks or patterns into the skin of a living person—was used to mark slaves and criminals. The ancient Romans branded runaway slaves with the letters FUG, for fugitivus. Until the 1800s, hot irons were used to brand British criminals with letters specific to their crimes. Today, human branding is generally voluntary and is used as body decoration or as an act of initiation to gangs. What religious sect practices human branding? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Battle of Narva (1700)Sweden's power and influence in the Baltic region was growing when the young and inexperienced Charles XII came to the throne in 1697. Seeing their chance to end Swedish domination of the area, Charles's neighbors—Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark, and Augustus II of Poland—formed an alliance and attacked. At Narva, the first major battle of the Great Northern War, Charles's army soundly defeated the superior Russian forces. A few years later, Peter returned to Narva. What happened? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Joan Ganz Cooney (1929)Cooney worked as a newspaper reporter and television publicist before becoming a producer for a public television station in New York City. There, she developed the concepts for children's programming that led to the incorporation of the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) in 1968. Through innovative programs like Sesame Street and 3, 2, 1 Contact, CTW transformed children's television and learning. What Emmy award-winning adult educational program did she help produce? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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meatball surgery— Battlefield surgery that is performed hastily so as to quickly stabilize a patient and prevent their imminent death. Popularized (and possibly coined) by H. Richard Hornberger in his semi-autobiographical novel M*A*S*H, which focused on doctors serving in a fictional mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. Primarily heard in US. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Eton Wall Game (2021)Every year on St. Andrew's Day, England's prestigious Eton College holds the famous Eton Wall Game, a variety of rugby that has its own highly technical rules and is different from all other forms of the game. The object of the game is to win goals by maneuvering the ball into the opposing team's "calx," designated by a chalk line on a garden wall at one end of the field and by a mark on a tree at the other. The game is made up of many scrimmages along the brick wall that marks off the college athletic field for which the game is named, and goals are almost never scored. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: midnightbeauty sleep - First defined as sleep taken before midnight, regarded as the most refreshing portion. More... mesonoxian - Means "of or related to midnight." More... quarternight - Halfway between sundown and midnight. More... small hours - Midnight or 1 a.m. to dawn, when the numbered hours are "small." More... | |