Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, September 28, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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presumptuous
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Personal Pronouns - PersonGrammatical person refers to the perspectives of the personal pronouns used to identify a person in speech and text (e.g. first, second, and third person). What is the generic "you," and when is it used? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The FlâneurDerived from the French verb flâner, meaning "to stroll," a flâneur is one who walks without a destination. Refined by French poet Charles Baudelaire, the idea of the flâneur as a person who travels a city on foot in order to experience it has been embraced by thinkers in fields such as photography and urban planning. Disengaged yet aware, the flâneur wanders without any purpose except to observe without interacting. In Canadian French, what negative connotation does flâner carry? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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.jpg) European Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo Discovers California (1542)In 1520, Cabrillo, an explorer in the service of Spain, landed in Mexico and joined in the conquests of Mexico and Guatemala. Some 20 years later, he accompanied an expedition up the west coast of Mexico, assuming its command after the death of its original commander. He then proceeded to explore much of the coast of what is now the state of California, becoming the first European to do so. How far north did he get before complications from a broken bone, possibly gangrene, took his life? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Alice Marble (1913)Marble was an American tennis player who began playing at age 15 and rose rapidly in the national tennis rankings after 1931. She won 18 Grand Slam championships: five in singles, six in doubles, and seven in mixed doubles. Her personal life, however, was filled with tragedy and intrigue. Her husband was killed during World War II, just days after Marble had suffered a miscarriage. She attempted suicide but recovered and, in 1945, began spying for US intelligence. What was her mission? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a match made in hell— An extremely ill-suited pairing of people or things; a match that will result in a particularly negative or disastrous outcome. (A play on the more common phrase "a match made in heaven," meaning the opposite.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Confucius's Birthday (2021)This is a time to commemorate the birth of the teacher Confucius, perhaps the most influential man in China's history. In Qufu, Shandong Province, China, the birthplace of Confucius, there is a two-week-long Confucian Culture Festival. During the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, Red Guards defaced many of the buildings in Qufu. They have since been restored, and the festival held there attracts scholars from China and abroad. The festival opens with a ceremony accompanied by ancient music and dance and includes exhibitions and lectures on the life and teachings of Confucius. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: technicalspod - A studious person who is quite socially inept or dull or a person who pursues an unfashionable, technical, or esoteric interest with obsessive dedication. More... masterpiece - Originally, it was used in a technical or academic sense to apply to a work that was presented to a medieval guild for qualification as a "master." More... technical, technic - Technical is based on technic, an adjective meaning "pertaining to art," from Greek tekhne, "art." More... technicize - To make technical. More... | |