Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, December 24, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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hardtack
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Absolute PhrasesWe generally use absolute phrases at the beginning of a sentence to introduce additional information, or at the end of a sentence to provide a final comment on the sentence as a whole. It is also possible to use an absolute phrase in the middle of a sentence. What does that placement add to the sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The GyroscopeAmong the unusual properties at work in gyroscopes is the resistance of a spinning object to being tilted. If set in a free-moving framework, such an object can provide a stable point of reference even if everything else around it—an airplane, for example—tilts. The effect is so strong that large gyroscopes can even prevent ships from rolling. Today, gyroscopes are used in missile guidance, automatic steering, and video game technology. What toys, besides tops, work with gyroscopic effects? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Christmas Island Discovered by Captain James Cook (1777)Though Captain James Cook was certainly not the first person to set foot on Christmas Island—the atoll had been visited by native Pacific Islanders in the past—it was uninhabited when he found it. Both the UK and US later laid claim to the atoll, and they vied for power there for the next 100 years or so, until it gained independence as part of the 33-island Republic of Kiribati and was renamed Kiritimati. Before it gained independence, the US and UK used the atoll as a testing ground for what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Georges-Marie Guynemer (1894)A top French fighter ace during World War I and a national hero, Guynemer shot down 53 enemy planes and survived being shot down several times before he presumably died in a firefight on September 11, 1917. During an engagement that fateful day, Guynemer's plane disappeared, reportedly shot down by a German pilot who was himself killed in action weeks later. To ease the blow of the loss of their young hero, French schoolchildren were taught that what had happened to him? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 History develops, art stands still.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the moral high ground— A position of moral authority or superiority that one's arguments, beliefs, ideas, etc., are claimed or purported to occupy, especially in comparison to a differing viewpoint. (Used especially in the phrase "take/claim/seize/etc. the moral high ground.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tolling the Devil's Knell (2021)To celebrate the birth of Christ and the death of the Devil, All Saints Minster Church in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, rings its bell the same number of times as the number of the year (for example, 2,014 times in 2014) on Christmas Eve. The tolling starts at 11:00 PM, stops during the church service from midnight to 12:45, and then resumes until the years have been tolled away. The custom has been going on for almost 700 years. The bell has been called "Black Tom of Soothill" since the 13th century, and Tolling Black Tom is supposed to keep the parish safe from the Devil for another 12 months. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: wombgestation - Literally the period during which unborn young are "carried" inside the womb—from Latin gerere, "carry" or "conduct." More... lightening - A drop in the level of the womb during the last weeks of pregnancy, as the head of the fetus engages in the pelvis. More... matrix - From Latin, meaning "breeding female," it originally was used for the uterus or womb, then for a supporting or enclosing structure. More... | |