Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, December 17, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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remonstrate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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ApostrophesAn apostrophe is a punctuation mark that primarily serves to indicate either grammatical possession or the contraction of two words. What is a proclitic? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Larping"Larping" is the act of participating in a live-action-role-playing game (LARP). Fiction and reality are blurred as "larpers" meet and play their games in person—though not as themselves, as fictional characters—in an artificially created or even imagined setting—somewhat like improvisational theater. Settings vary from historical to modern to fantasy. Event arrangers called gamemasters oversee the games, which can last days and include thousands of players. When was the first recorded LARP? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Prime Minister of Australia Disappears (1967)Harold Holt was an Australian political leader who served in a number of cabinet positions before becoming prime minister in 1966, upon the retirement of Robert Gordon Menzies, whom Holt succeeded as Liberal party leader. During his short tenure, he increased the number of Australian troops in South Vietnam, a policy that caused controversy. He disappeared while swimming in rough surf in 1967 and is believed to have drowned. What Australian urban legends are based on Holt's disappearance? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (1706)The wife of a French marquis, du Châtelet defied convention in both her personal and professional life. She was a mathematician and physicist and wrote a number of scientific treatises as well as a translation of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. She had several extramarital affairs—the most enduring of which was with philosopher and writer Voltaire, who once described her as "a great man whose only fault was being a woman." How did she once think her way out of a gambling debt? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The music of life would be mute if the chords of memory were snapped asunder.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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hit the rocks— To encounter an especially difficult, troubled, or low point, as in a relationship or some pursuit. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Saturnalia (2023)This Ancient Roman Winter Solstice festival began on December 17 and lasted for seven days. It was held in honor of Saturn, the father of the gods, and was characterized by the suspension of discipline and reversal of the usual order. Grudges and quarrels were forgotten; businesses, courts, and schools closed down; and masquerading or change of dress between the sexes often occurred. The festivities were characterized by various kinds of excesses—giving rise to the modern use of the term saturnalian, which is used to describe "unrestrained license and revelry." More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: notchcrenelation, crenelle - A crenelation (from Latin crena, "notch") is a series of indentations or loopholes around the top of a castle, battlement, or wall—with each indentation being a crenelle (or crenel). More... carf, kerf - A cut or notch in timber is a carf or kerf—which are also used to describe the width of such a cut. More... dent - As in "notch," it comes from the French word for tooth; its original meaning was "blow, stroke" in general. More... score - First a notch used to keep count, as on a stick. More... | |