Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, December 17, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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quittance
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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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 Capability BrownBrown was an English landscape gardener known for designing gardens that broke with the French formal tradition. Brown instead favored a distinctively English style of grandly picturesque, natural-looking, and asymmetrically structured landscapes replete with groves of trees, expansive lawns, meandering streams, and sylvan lakes. In 1749, he became a consulting gardener and earned his nickname by often telling clients that their properties had "capabilities." What was his real first name? 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 idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that...The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time.Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) | |
| 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... | |