Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, March 20, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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disaffect
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Identifying Interrogative PronounsInterrogative pronouns are used in interrogative sentences to ask questions, functioning either as the subject or object of such sentences. Why is an interrogative pronoun easy to identify in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Hex SignsHex signs are a form of folk art that originated in the Pennsylvania Dutch culture. Though the colorful geometric emblems remain popular in Pennsylvania, they are not used by the local Amish or Mennonite populations. There is some controversy over the true purpose of hex signs. While some folk-art scholars maintain that the signs are purely decorative, they are associated with folk magic, and their designs carry symbolic meaning. A hex sign featuring a horse head is said to protect against what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Dutch East India Company Established (1602)Chartered by the parliament of the Netherlands to expand trade and assure close ties between the government and its colonial enterprises in Asia, the Dutch East India Company was the world's first multinational corporation. It had quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, and wrested control of the Spice Islands trade from Portugal. However, it was plagued by corruption and insolvency in the late 18th century and was dissolved. What issues contributed to its decline? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henrik Ibsen (1828)Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, is considered the father of modern theater. Emphasizing character over plot, he explored psychological conflicts stemming from frustrated love and destructive family relationships, and he addressed social problems such as political corruption and the changing role of women. Many considered his plays scandalous, but he earned a worldwide audience with powerful studies of middle-class morality, such as A Doll's House. What, allegedly, were Ibsen's last words? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The woods are never solitary—they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity…The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only—a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the idiot box— slang A television set, or television in general. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tunisia Independence Day (2024)Independence Day is a public holiday in Tunisia commemorating a treaty signed on this day in 1956 that formally recognized Tunisia's independence from France. It had been a French colony since the 1880s. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: loudhappy-clappy - Refers to any Christian congregation that is extremely enthusiastic, loud, and musical. More... stentor - Homer introduced Stentor, a very loud herald, in the Iliad—which gives us stentor, "person with a loud voice," and stentorian, which originally meant "loud, booming." More... rodomontade - Meaning loud bragging, it got its name from Rodomonto, a loud bragging Moorish king of epics. More... thersitical, clamant - To be thersitical is to be loudmouthed or foulmouthed; clamant is loud and insistent. More... | |