Daily Content Archive

(as of Wednesday, August 1, 2018)
Word of the Day

self-possession

Definition:(noun) The trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior.
Synonyms:self-command, willpower, self-control, self-will
Usage: My life depended on my keeping my self-possession, and the desperate nature of the situation lent me a desperate courage.
Daily Grammar Lesson

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

Sargon of Akkad

Sargon of Akkad was a 24th-century BCE Mesopotamian king who established one of the first multiethnic and centrally ruled empires in history. His dynasty lasted approximately 160 years, and his vast territory extended from Elam to the Mediterranean Sea and included Mesopotamia, parts of modern-day Iran, Syria, and possibly portions of the Arabian Peninsula. An account of Sargon's early childhood from his purported autobiography closely resembles that of what religious figure? More...
This Day in History

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

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
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924)

Idiom of the Day

grill (someone) (about something)

To question or interrogate someone intensely and relentlessly (about something). More...
Today's Holiday

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

Today's topic: pleasant

amicable, 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...

soft - First meant "agreeable, pleasant." More...

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