Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, June 27, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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snooze
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining the Middle VoiceThe so-called middle voice is an approximate type of grammatical voice in which the subject both performs and receives the action expressed by the verb. In other words, the subject acts as both the agent and the receiver (i.e., the direct object) of the action. Why is the middle voice described as a combination of the active and passive voices? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Kelvin Water DropperThe Kelvin water dropper is an electrostatic generator that was invented in the 1860s by William Thomson—better known as Lord Kelvin. The device uses drops of water falling into separate buckets to generate opposite electrical charges, which will eventually discharge via an arc between the buckets. If the buckets are insulated from each other, they can become so charged that they may even fling the water droplets away before they land. How can one build such a device at home? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 "BTK" Serial Killer Dennis Rader Pleads Guilty to 10 Murders (2005)Rader was a city employee, married father of two, Boy Scout leader, and an active churchgoer—and a serial killer. From 1974 to 1991, he killed 10 people in and around Wichita, Kansas. In 2004, after years of silence, he resumed taunting police and local media with letters describing the murders. In February 2005, police used information on a floppy disk he had sent them to locate and arrest him. He pled guilty that June. Five days after his arrest, he was fired from his job—for what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Lafcadio Hearn (1850)Born in Greece and educated in Ireland, Hearn immigrated to the US at age 19 and lived in poverty for a time until he found employment as a journalist. He was a colorful but morbidly discontented man, admired for his highly polished tales of the macabre. In 1890, a magazine sent him to Japan, where he married a Japanese woman, took a Japanese name, and became a citizen. His subsequent books offered the West its first thoughtful view of Japanese culture. What partial handicap did he have? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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hit the gas— To move quickly; to accelerate or go faster. Used especially while riding in an automobile. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Little Big Horn Days (2020)This festival is a commemoration in Hardin, Montana, of the Old West and the famous Battle of Little Big Horn. An hour-long reenactment is staged each night of the three-day festival near the actual site of the original battle, which occurred June 25, 1876. The battle reenactment is performed by more than 200 riders. Among them are descendants of those who rode with George Armstrong Custer. Other events of the weekend are a historical symposium, a street dance, and a parade. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: stairwayhalf-pace - A broad step or small landing between two half flights in a staircase. More... companionway - A stairway or ladder from a deck to the cabin below. More... staircase - A stairway does not necessarily have a handrail or balustrade—but a staircase does. More... newel - The main post at the bottom of a banister or stairway. More... | |