Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, March 25, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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dilly-dally
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Distributive DeterminersDistributive determiners, also known as "distributive adjectives," are used to refer to individual members within a group or within a pair. The distributive determiners are "each," "every," "either," and "neither." What are they are used to modify? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 MartiansMars is similar to Earth in a number of ways: It has a 24.6-hour day and may have once had liquid water on its surface. Though life on Mars would likely resemble bacteria if it existed at all, the idea of human-like beings living on Mars has long captivated humanity. After American astronomer Percival Lowell came to believe, in the 1890s, that Mars had intelligently built canals, many science-fiction authors began to write about Martians. What effectively ended the trend of Martians in fiction? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Saturn's Largest Moon Is Discovered (1655)Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second largest moon in the solar system. It was discovered by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1655 and remains the only natural satellite in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere. The thick, opaque atmosphere obscures the surface, but some surface detail has been observed via the Hubble Space Telescope. When the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft arrived on Saturn in 2004, it revealed that Titan's surface has what in common with Earth? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Saint Catherine of Siena (1347)Born in Siena, Italy, as Caterina Benincasa, Catherine claimed to have mystic visions beginning in early childhood. In 1370, in response to a vision, she began sending letters to prominent figures. She later traveled to Avignon and influenced Pope Gregory XI to end the "Babylonian captivity" of the papacy and return to Rome. Although she never learned to write, she dictated hundreds of letters and some notable mystic works. Catherine is believed to have suffered from what condition? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these [books] only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.Washington Irving (1783-1859) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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sit a spell— To sit down, relax, and socialize for a while at one's leisure. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tichborne Dole (2022)The custom of handing out a dole, or allotment of flour, to the village poor in Tichborne, Hampshire, England, dates back to the 12th or 13th century. Lady Mabella Tichborne, who was on her deathbed at the time, begged her husband to grant her enough land to provide an annual bounty of bread to the poor, who were suffering from a recent failure of the wheat crop. On March 25, or Lady Day, each year, villagers in need of assistance gather at the porch of Tichborne House to claim their portion of the gift: a gallon of flour for adults, half as much for children. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: luckhapless, happiness - Hapless means one is lacking hap, "good fortune, luck"; the words happy and happiness also have the root "hap." More... happen - Fairly new to English, from hap, "chance, luck," which was borrowed from Old Norse happ. More... fortune - Latin fors, "chance," formed fortuna, "that which fate brings along," hence fortune, "luck" or "good luck." More... potluck - Comes from the practice of throwing leftovers in a pot—with luck determining how good the stew would taste. More... | |