Daily Content Archive

(as of Saturday, April 20, 2024)
Word of the Day

buffoon

Definition:(noun) A person given to clowning and joking.
Synonyms:merry andrew, clown, goof, goofball
Usage: At a country fair there was a buffoon who made all the people laugh by imitating the cries of various animals.
Daily Grammar Lesson

Identifying Direct Objects

Direct objects are directly affected by the verbs they complete. What questions can we ask to identify the direct object in a sentence? More...
Article of the Day

Underwater Archaeology

Underwater archaeology, a branch of maritime archaeology, is the study of past human life, behaviors, and cultures using the physical remains found in bodies of water or buried beneath water-logged sediment. Researchers in this field generally examine the sites of shipwrecks, submerged airplanes, structures created by humans in water bodies, and places where people once lived that have since been flooded or covered by water. How do divers record their findings underwater? More...
This Day in History

The Columbine High School Massacre (1999)

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were seniors at Colorado's Columbine High School when they carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring 21 others before taking their own lives. The incident, widely covered by the media, stirred debate about the pair's motivation for the killings, the availability of firearms, and the role of bullying, video games, and music in acts of violence. For what crime had the two been previously arrested? More...
Today's Birthday

Philippe Pinel (1745)

After moving to Paris in 1778, Pinel, a French physician, was appointed director of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière hospitals. His experiences there prompted him to advocate for the humane treatment of mentally ill persons—then called the insane—and for the empirical study of mental disease. He further contributed to the development of psychiatry by establishing the practice of thoroughly documenting psychiatric case histories for research. What initially inspired Pinel's interest in mental illness? More...
Quotation of the Day
Ambition is like choler, which is a humor that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped; but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh adust, and thereby malign and venomous.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Idiom of the Day

in the sticks

In the countryside, especially in a rustic or particularly unsophisticated area. More...
Today's Holiday

National Poetry Month (2024)

Established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long event centers attention on the contributions and accomplishments of American poets. It is celebrated primarily by educational institutions, libraries, bookstores, and nonprofit organizations throughout the United States and Canada, and its activities include poetry readings, poetry festivals, displays and exhibits, workshops, and other events designed to help Americans of all ages learn more about poetry and its place in our contemporary culture. More...
Word Trivia

Today's topic: pity

alms - Goes back to Greek eleemosune, "compassion, pity," and eleos, "mercy." More...

bemoan, lament - Bemoaning is motivated when pity or grief is over an event that is joined to a consequence, whereas lamenting is motivated when the grief is over the event itself. More...

pity, piety - Pity and piety shared the meanings "compassion" and "dutifulness, reverence" for a while. More...

ruth, ruthless, ruthful - Ruth, meaning "compassion, pity," is part of ruthless and ruthful. More...

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