Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, May 14, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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grovel
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Reflexive Pronouns as Direct Objects in the Middle VoiceMany middle-voice verbs are transitive verbs and therefore require a direct object in the form of a reflexive pronoun. Without a reflexive pronoun, what happens to the receiver of the action? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The BreakersBuilt to serve as the summer home of American socialite and businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the Breakers is a 70-room mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The home was constructed in the 1890s at a cost of more than $12 million and is deemed the archetype of the Gilded Age, during which socially ambitious Americans sought to imitate the European aristocracy. Today, it is Rhode Island's most visited attraction. Why did Vanderbilt insist that wood not be used in the Breakers' construction? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Jamestown, Virginia, Founded (1607)Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. It was founded by the London Company on a peninsula—now an island—in the James River and named after the reigning English monarch, James I. Disease, starvation, and Native American attacks wiped out most of the colony, but the London Company continually sent more men and supplies. A successfully exported strain of tobacco was cultivated there by a colonist named John Rolfe, who later married what Native American princess? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Pierre Victor Auger (1899)Auger was a French physicist who worked in the fields of nuclear and atomic physics and also advanced the study of cosmic rays. He directed the mathematical and natural sciences department at UNESCO from 1948 to 1959 and was instrumental in creating the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). In 1977, he was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences. The Auger effect as well as the world's largest detector of what are named after him? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.Charles Darwin (1809-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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get in(to) hot water— To provoke or incite anger, hostility, or punishment against oneself; to cause or encounter trouble or difficulty, especially that which will result in punishment or reprisal. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Carabao Festival (2024)The Carabao Festival is a feast in honor of San Isidro Labrador (St. Isidore the Farmer), the patron saint of Filipino farmers, held in Pulilan, Bulacan province, the Philippines. The feast also honors the carabao, or water buffalo, the universal beast of burden of the Philippines. Farmers decorate their carabao with flowers to parade with the image of San Isidro. The festival is also marked by exploding firecrackers and the performance of the Bamboo Dance, where dancers represent the tinikling bird, a menace to the rice crop. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: sailingaloof - Comes from sailing, in which ships keep clear of coastal rocks by holding the vessel "luff"—"to the windward"; so, to hold "a-luff" means to "keep clear." More... jibe - Meaning "be compatible, consistent," it may come from the earlier jibe, "to shift a sail from side to side while sailing in the wind." More... plain sailing - Probably comes from plane sailing, a way of determining a ship's position based on its moving on a plane (flat surface). More... aback - Originated in sailing, as a ship was taken aback when a strong gust of wind suddenly blew the sails back against the mast, causing the ship to stop momentarily. More... | |