Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, December 6, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
progeny
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Reporting VerbsIn reported speech, we use reporting verbs to introduce the information that was spoken previously. The most common so-called "reporting verbs" are "say" and "tell." When we use "tell," what else do we need to use? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The People's TempleThe People's Temple was a cult founded in 1955 by preacher Jim Jones. Though his congregation was known for helping the poor, Jones became the subject of criminal investigations and led 1,000 followers to Guyana in 1977, establishing the Jonestown commune there. In 1978, cult members killed US Representative Leo Ryan during an investigatory visit. The next day, 912 of Jones's followers died in a mass murder-suicide that involved cyanide-laced punch. Did anyone survive? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 US Federal Judge Rules James Joyce's Ulysses Not Obscene (1933)For more than a decade after its debut, James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, was banned in the US. A literary magazine had attempted to publish it in serial form, but the series was cut short after the publishers ran a rather suggestive passage and were convicted of obscenity. When the implicit ban on the book was finally challenged in 1933, Judge John M. Woolsey praised the work for its literary merits and ruled that it was not obscene. How did a publisher force the issue to court? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Joyce Kilmer (1886)Kilmer was a prolific poet who celebrated nature and faith in short, sentimental verse. His works, now mostly forgotten, have been dismissed by modern scholars as overly simplistic. Today, his reputation largely rests on the wide popularity of a single 1913 poem, "Trees," which begins, "I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree." Many specific trees have been proposed as Kilmer's inspiration, and the remains of one now-dead candidate were placed in storage by what institution? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
be brought in from the cold— To be allowed to join or participate in a group from which one was previously excluded; to be accepted in a certain social setting. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Finland Independence Day (2020)The Finnish people lived under Russian control beginning in 1809. The Finnish nationalist movement grew in the 1800s, and when the Bolsheviks took over Russia on November 7, 1917, the Finns saw a time to declare their independence. They did so on December 6 of that same year. This day is a national holiday celebrated with military parades in Helsinki and performances at the National Theater. It is traditionally a solemn occasion that begins with a parade of students carrying torches and one flag for each year of independence. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: wakingexpergefacient, expergefaction, expergefactor - A synonym for awakening is expergefacient; expergefaction is waking up and an alarm clock is an expergefactor. More... dysania - The state of having a hard time waking up and getting out of bed in the morning. More... experrection - Waking up or awakening. More... hypnagogic jerks, hypnopompic jerks - Hypnagogic jerks are the spasms that happen right when you fall asleep; hypnopompic jerks happen right when you are waking up. More... | |