Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, August 1, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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canorous
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Comparative Adverbs from Adverbs Ending in "-ly"Many adverbs are formed by adding "-ly" to the end of an adjective. If an adverb has been created according to this pattern, what do we do to form the comparative? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 NemesisIn 1984, paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski posited that mass extinction events are cyclical, happening about every 26 million years, and are often caused by large impact events—such as the asteroid that may have led to the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Some astronomers sought to explain the theory with Nemesis, a hypothetical companion star to the Sun about 1.5 light-years away. According to the hypothesis, how was Nemesis responsible for these extinction events? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Nanchang Uprising (1927)Considered the birthplace of the People's Liberation Army, the city of Nanchang in the Jiangxi Province of southeastern China was the site of the first revolutionary activities of the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. During the uprising, a force of 30,000 Communist troops rose against the Kuomintang government and briefly established the first soviet republic in China. However, the government soon retook the city, and it became the regular Nationalist capital in 1928. Who led the uprising? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Maria Mitchell (1818)The daughter of an amateur astronomer, Mitchell spent her formative years learning to observe the heavens. When she was 29, she discovered a comet. For her achievement, she was awarded a gold medal by the king of Denmark. Her reputation as an astronomer thus secured, she soon became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, thereafter, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. To which of America's Founding Fathers was Mitchell distantly related? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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grill (someone) (about something)— To question or interrogate someone intensely and relentlessly (about something). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Lammas (2023)Possibly one of the four great pagan festivals of Britain, Lammas was known as the Gule of August in the Middle Ages. In medieval England, loaves made from the first ripe grain were blessed in the church on this day—the word lammas being a short form of "loaf mass." Lammas Day is similar in original intent to the Jewish Feast of Weeks, also called Shavuot or Pentecost, which came at the end of the Passover grain harvest. A 15th-century suggestion was that the name derived from "lamb" and "mass," and was the time when a feudal tribute of lambs was paid. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: pleasantamicable, amiable - Amicable implies being well disposed; amiable is acting well disposed and is commonly applied only to people—though sometimes it is used for occasions, while amicable is not applied to people at all but to human interactions and their outcomes. Amiable first meant "kind" or "lovely, lovable," and amicable first applied to things and meant "pleasant, benign." More... jolly - Comes from Old French jolif, "merry, festive, pleasant." More... merry - First meant "peaceful" or "pleasant," which is what it first meant in "Merry Christmas." More... | |