Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, September 19, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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ineluctable
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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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 | |
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 The Fra Mauro MapCommissioned by King Alfonso V of Portugal, Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro and his assistant Andrea Bianco completed a world map in 1459. Strange by today's standards, the map is oriented with the south at the top, as was Arab tradition. Fra Mauro used Marco Polo's travelogues for information about Asia and was one of the first Western cartographers to represent Japan. The map also features a detailed description of Africa, which encouraged Portuguese exploration. Where is the map now? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 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 | |
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 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 | |
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 All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity—it is to destroy it.Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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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 | |
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 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 | |
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Today's topic: intoxicatednappy - Describing a beer that has a head and is foaming—or a person who is slightly intoxicated. More... capernoited - Slightly intoxicated. More... groggy - From grog, "spirits mixed with water," it first meant "intoxicated." More... temulent, temulency - Temulent means drunken or intoxicated; temulency is intoxication. More... | |