Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, December 31, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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blamable
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Idioms that End with PrepositionsIdioms that end with prepositions are typically phrasal verbs and consist of a verb followed by either a preposition, a particle, or a particle with a preposition. How is this type of prepositional idiom used in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 African ArtThe legacy of African art spans thousands of years and myriad cultures. Though traditional art forms include masks, figures, and textiles, each culture's works have a unique visual style. Still, some common artistic themes can be seen in art from across the continent, including an emphasis on the human figure, sculpture, performance art, and visual abstraction. What Western artists were particularly influenced by African art when it became the subject of widespread attention in the 20th century? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Queen Victoria Chooses to Make Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's Capital (1857)First inhabited by indigenous tribes, the city that became Ottawa was founded as Bytown in 1827 by John By, an engineer in charge of construction of the Rideau Canal linking Lake Ontario and the Ottawa River. In the 1850s, the city was renamed Ottawa—after the Algonquian-speaking Ottawa tribe—when it fell into competition with major cities like Montreal and Toronto to be named capital of the Province of Canada, which comprised modern-day Ontario and Quebec. Why did Queen Victoria choose Ottawa? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutierrez (1930)The subject of the acclaimed 1988 film Stand and Deliver, Escalante was a math teacher who, with his unconventional teaching style, dedication, and complete faith in his students' potential, created a successful advanced placement—or college level—calculus program at a high school in a poor East Los Angeles neighborhood. In 1982, when 18 of his students received perfect or near-perfect scores on a national exam, they were accused of cheating. What happened when 12 retook the test? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden.Mark Twain (1835-1910) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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not as black as (one) is painted— Not as evil, malicious, or malignant as one is described or believed to be. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Omisoka (2017)Widely celebrated on December 31, Omisoka marks the end of the preparations for New Year's celebrations in Japan. On Omisoka, people wearing kimonos fill the streets as they go to visit shrines. But millions watch the "Red and White Song Contest" on TV. This marathon song festival, first organized in 1950, has become an indispensable ritual of the New Year. The TV show ends shortly before midnight in time for an older tradition: the tolling of the great bells in Buddhist temples at midnight. Priests strike the bells 108 times, a reminder of the 108 human frailties or sins in Buddhist belief. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: hornbugle - Originally the word for ox, whose horn was used to give signals, it came to mean such a musical instrument. More... tantara - Fanfare on a trumpet or horn. More... rhinoceros, rhinoceroses - Rhinoceros comes from Greek rhin-, "nose," and keras, "horn"; the correct plural is rhinoceroses. More... unicorn - From a Greek wild ox known as monokeros, "one horn," which, in Latin, became unicornis. More... | |