Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, September 19, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
DeclensionDeclension collectively refers to the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs to reflect certain aspects of how they are used in a sentence. What two things does the declension of nouns reflect? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Tarring and FeatheringDating at least to the Crusades, tarring and feathering is a physical punishment that was used to enforce formal justice in feudal Europe and, later, vigilante justice in the American frontier. The practice involves stripping victims to the waist, covering them in hot tar and feathers, and often parading them around in public with the intent of causing enough harm and humiliation to drive them out of town. In 2007, a Belfast man was tarred and feathered for doing what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Giles Corey Pressed to Death during Salem Witch Trials (1692)Martha Corey was a Massachusetts woman hanged for the crime of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. A pious churchgoer, she had refused to confess but was convicted anyway. Her husband, Giles Corey, was also eventually accused but refused to enter a plea at his trial. In an attempt to make him enter a plea, he was pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones. He died two days before his wife's execution. What did Giles reportedly reply each time he was asked for his plea? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 William Golding (1911)Praised for his highly imaginative and original writings, Golding was a British author whose works focus on the eternal nature of man. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and was knighted in 1988. In his best-known work, the allegorical Lord of the Flies, he described the nightmarish adventures of a group of English schoolboys stranded on an island and traced their degeneration from a state of innocence to blood lust and savagery. What else did he write? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 I have always a sacred veneration for any one I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are ever found under the most ragged and withered surface of the earth.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
have a trick up (one's) sleeve— To have a secret plan, idea, or advantage that can be utilized if and when it is required. A reference to cheating at a card game by hiding a favorable card up one's sleeve. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Feast of San Gennaro (2023)San Gennaro, or St. Januarius, 4th-century bishop of Benevento, is the patron saint of Naples, Italy. He is said to have survived a fiery furnace and a den of wild beasts before being beheaded during the reign of Diocletian. His body was brought to Naples, along with a vial containing some of his blood. The congealed blood, preserved since that time in the Cathedral of San Gennaro, is claimed to liquefy on the anniversary of his death each year—an event that has drawn crowds to Naples since 1389. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: truckroo bar - An Australian term for a metal bar on the front of a car or truck that prevents the vehicle from being damaged in the event of a collision with an animal (such as a kangaroo). More... snow groomer - A truck or other vehicle, either with tracks running along both sides or dragging equipment behind, used to maintain ski hills and groom (pack down) snow. More... truck farm - Refers to the sense of truck as "commodities for sale," and, later, "garden produce for market." More... truck - Formed by combining Latin trochos, "wheel," and Greek trechein, "to run," it originally referred to a wooden wheel. More... | |