Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, July 24, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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hangdog
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Conjunctive Adverbs of PurposeWe often use conjunctive adverbs to indicate a relationship of reason or purpose between two independent clauses. When we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb, they are traditionally separated with what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 William of OckhamBorn around 1285, William of Ockham was an English Franciscan philosopher, theologian, and political writer. He is remembered as the originator of the medieval rule of logical economy known as Ockham's razor, the doctrine that unnecessary assumptions should be avoided in formulating hypotheses. He was excommunicated by Pope John XXII for his defense of the Franciscan notion of poverty and the rights of the empire against the papacy. He died in Bavaria. How did he come to be there? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Nixon and Khrushchev Engage in "Kitchen Debate" (1959)The Kitchen Debate was an impromptu debate—conducted through interpreters—between US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Centering on a discussion of the merits of capitalism versus communism, it took place in the kitchen of a model suburban American house designed to showcase American household appliances, which Nixon touted as examples of American innovation. How did the debate end? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Calogero Vizzini (1877)Vizzini, don of the village of Villalba, was one of the most influential Mafia bosses of Sicily following WWII. After the war, the staunch anti-communist was made mayor of Villalba by the Allied occupiers, a move that some might say adds credence to claims that Allied Forces enlisted direct Mafia support during their invasion of Sicily in 1943. Between 1949 and 1954, Vizzini reportedly ruled a lucrative black market operation, allegedly using what business as a front for trafficking heroin? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Grammar, n.: A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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get with the times— slang To understand or be knowledgeable of modern times, especially as relates to the contemporary trends, ideas, or fashions. (Usually said as a jocular or sarcastic imperative.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 World Santa Claus Congress (2023)The World Santa Claus Congress is held every July at the Bakken amusement park in Klampenborg, Denmark. The three-day event typically brings together more than 100 Santa Clauses from more than a dozen countries, including Japan and Venezuela, discussing such subjects as how to walk like, laugh like, and exude the generous spirit of Santa Claus. They dance around a Christmas tree and enjoy a traditional Danish Christmas feast of roast pork, cabbage and rice pudding. By tradition, the Santas also travel by antique fire engines and buses to a nearby beach for an annual dip in the sea. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: plasterdrywall, plasterboard - Drywall is a building material made of a sheet of plaster covered with heavy paper on both sides; it is also called plasterboard. More... gypsum - From Semitic, a relative or ancestor of Arabic jibs and Hebrew gephes, "plaster." More... plaster of Paris - So called because it is prepared from the gypsum of Paris, France. More... trullization - Laying on plaster with a trowel. More... | |