Daily Content Archive

(as of Friday, July 10, 2020)
Word of the Day

torturous

Definition:(adjective) Extremely painful.
Synonyms:agonizing, excruciating, harrowing
Usage: Losing someone you love is a torturous experience.
Daily Grammar Lesson

Using Reporting Verbs

Both direct and indirect speech use what are known as "reporting verbs," the most common of which are "say" and "tell." When we use "tell," we need to use another person's name or a personal pronoun as an indirect object. What are other reporting verbs? More...
Article of the Day

Mani

Mani was the Iranian founder of Manichaeism, a once-widespread but now-extinct religion that centered on the struggle between good and evil. Inspired by visions of an angel, Mani saw himself as the last in a line of prophets that included Adam, Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus. His preaching was tolerated until Persian king Bahram I’s reign in the late 3rd century, during which time Mani was imprisoned. Though little is reliably known about his life, by many accounts he died in what gruesome way? More...
This Day in History

Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents Sells for £49.5 million (2002)

Misattributed to an assistant of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens until 2002, when an expert from Sotheby's auction house identified it as the work of the master himself, Massacre of the Innocents is an early 17th-century painting depicting Herod's slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. One of two paintings Rubens made of the Biblical scene, it fetched £49.5 million ($76 million) at auction and is one of the priciest paintings ever sold. Its style is reminiscent of which Italian painter? More...
Today's Birthday

Camille Pissarro (1830)

Known as the "Father of Impressionism," Pissarro was the only Impressionist painter who participated in all eight of the group's exhibitions. He is notable not only for his paintings of rural and urban French life but in his role as a mentor to postimpressionists Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. He gained popularity in the 1890s with his interpretation of nature, including many landscapes drawn from his surroundings in the French countryside. Why were many of his paintings destroyed in 1871? More...
Quotation of the Day
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Idiom of the Day

hang paper

To write a dishonored or bad check. More...
Today's Holiday

Laguna Beach Festival of Arts (2023)

This festival features a display of art works in Laguna Beach, California, along with breathtaking tableaux vivants—living pictures that recreate master art works. Since the 1940s, artists have created the tableaux to reproduce paintings by such varied masters as Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse, and Winslow Homer. They also transform pieces of jewelry, sculptures, antique artifacts, and even scenes from postage stamps into life-sized works of art. The tableaux, presented for 90 minutes each evening, are created by some 300 models. More...
Word Trivia

Today's topic: holes

caster - A container with holes in the top for sprinkling something like sugar or pepper. More...

chad - A hole poked out of cards or paper. More...

latebricole - Some animals are latebricole, living in holes. More...

canal - The holes in a sponge are called canals. More...

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