Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, September 5, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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diffidence
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Intensifiers vs. MitigatorsIntensifiers are the opposite of mitigators, which are used to decrease the intensity of the words they modify. What is the mitigator in the following sentence? "After eating dinner, everyone in the room was a little bit full." More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!L. Frank Baum was an American journalist, playwright, and author. In 1900, he published his most famous work, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a story about a girl named Dorothy who is carried by a tornado to the magical land of Oz. Baum's fame rests largely on his 14 stories of Oz, all of which emphasize the virtues of practicality, self-reliance, tolerance, and egalitarianism. In 1938, the story was made into an extraordinarily popular motion picture. Who played the role of Dorothy? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Sam Houston Elected First President of Texas (1836)A teenage runaway who spent three years living with Cherokee Indians, Houston went on to serve in the War of 1812 and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1823. Attracted to the struggle for Texan independence, he led the army of the provisional government of Texas to victory against the Mexicans in 1836 and served as the newly independent Republic of Texas's first president. He helped Texas win statehood in 1845 and became governor in 1859, but he was deposed in 1861 for what reason? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Cage (1912)Cage was an American avant-garde composer and writer. In the 1930s, he began writing all-percussion pieces and proclaimed the use of noise as the next musical horizon. In 1938, he introduced the "prepared piano," an instrument whose sound is radically modified by various objects placed on the strings. He developed the idea of indeterminacy, music that is not strictly controlled. The notorious 4'33", probably his most famous piece, consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.Edith Wharton (1862-1937) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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bucket list— A list of accomplishments or tasks one hopes to do or achieve before one dies. "Bucket" here is taken from the phrase "kick the bucket," meaning to die. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bread and Roses Festival (2016)The Bread and Roses Festival is a one-day, free event held in Lawrence, Massachusetts, each year on Labor Day, the first Monday in September. The Festival commemorates the Bread and Roses Labor Strike that occurred in Lawrence in 1912 in protest of low wages and harsh working conditions. The Festival combines multicultural arts, poetry, dance, and music with themes of labor activism and social protest. In addition, information booths, ethnic food, and commemorative merchandise vendors are on site, as well as a petting zoo, pony rides, and a domino tournament. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: storehousemagazine - Considered a "storehouse" for articles; the word comes from Arabic makhzan, "storehouse," and was first used in book titles presenting a "store" of information about specific topics. More... ambry - Another word for a treasury, storehouse, place to keep things. More... garner - Originally a storehouse or granary. More... thesaurus - Comes from Greek thesauros, meaning "storehouse, treasury," and its original sense was "dictionary or encyclopedia," but this was narrowed to the current meaning with the appearance of Roget's in 1852. More... | |