Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, August 18, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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browbeat
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Modal Auxiliary VerbsA modal auxiliary verb is used to change the meaning of other verbs by expressing possibility, likelihood, ability, permission, obligation, or future intention. How many "true" modal auxiliary verbs are there? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Human MailTraveling by mail is both dangerous and illegal, yet several people throughout history braved the risks anyway. One famous case was that of Henry "Box" Brown, who escaped slavery in 1849 by shipping himself to an area of the US where slavery had been outlawed. Just a few years ago, a man escaped a German prison by mail. Though it is fairly rare in actuality, scenarios involving human mail frequently appear in works of fiction. What children's book features a protagonist who travels by mail? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Priest Urbain Grandier Burned at the Stake for Witchcraft (1634)Grandier was a 17th-century French Catholic priest who was accused of bewitching the nuns of the Ursuline convent. Although he was acquitted by an ecclesiastical council, Grandier had published scathing criticisms of Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister and virtual ruler of France, who arranged to have him re-tried. Accused of having entered a pact with the devil, Grandier was tortured, found guilty, and burned at the stake. What was presented as evidence of the Grandier's diabolical pact? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922)Robbe-Grillet, a French novelist and filmmaker, is considered the originator of the nouveau roman, or "new novel." This genre, also called the antinovel, dispenses with conventional notions of plot, character, style, theme, psychology, chronology, and message. In Robbe-Grillet's The Erasers, for example, a detective searches for the killer in a murder that has not yet occurred, only to discover that he will be the murderer. The novel is based on what legend from ancient Greece? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Circus, n.: A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women, and children acting the fool.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a lick with the rough side of the tongue— Severe criticism and/or a stern reprimand. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Mount Hagen Cultural Show (2022)This gathering in Papua New Guinea, known as a sing-sing, provides an opportunity for outsiders to experience the ceremonial drumming, dancing, and other displays of tribal culture of hundreds of Western Highland clans. Performers wear their traditional tribal garb, often with body paint and an elaborate headdress made of feathers. The annual Mount Hagen show, staged more for tourists than for the locals, includes a competition that encourages decorative costumes and wild dancing to the accompaniment of nonstop drumming. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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