Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, April 30, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pleonastic
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Indefinite Articles with Uncountable NounsUncountable nouns cannot take the indefinite articles "a" or "an" in a sentence. Why not? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The CorsetA corset is a garment worn to mold the torso into a certain shape for orthopedic reasons or, more commonly, to shrink the waist and exaggerate the bust for aesthetic reasons. It dates to at least 2000 BCE, when it was worn as an outer garment in Minoan Crete. By the 16th century, it had become a tight inner bodice stiffened with whalebone, wood, or steel. After some 4,000 years of use, corsets largely fell out of fashion in the 1920s. What is the record for smallest corseted waist size? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Fall of Saigon (1975)On April 30, 1975, Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam and the capital of South Vietnam, was captured by the National Liberation Front and the People's Army of Vietnam. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. The city lost its status as the country's capital and was renamed after what Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader and late president of North Vietnam? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Eugen Bleuler (1857)Bleuler was a Swiss psychiatrist who in 1908 introduced the term "schizophrenia." While studying schizophrenic patients, Bleuler concluded that the disease was not one of dementia, a condition involving organic deterioration of the brain, but one consisting of a state of mind in which contradictory tendencies exist together. He argued, against the prevailing opinion, that such patients were not incurable. "Schizophrenia" replaced what term for the disease? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Life's more amusing than we thought.Andrew Lang (1844-1912) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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keep (up) (one's) end of the bargain— To do as was promised in an agreement or bargain; to carry through with what one agreed to do. Also worded as "keep one's end of the bargain up." More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Liberation Day (Vietnam) (2024)On April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War officially came to an end as communist North Vietnamese tanks rolled onto the grounds of the Presidential Palace in the South Vietnamese capital city of Saigon. The Vietnamese hold celebrations throughout the month of April that culminate on April 30th, when the entire nation celebrates the final victory in Saigon (now named Ho Chi Minh City). In Ho Chi Minh City, there are military parades featuring marching bands and Vietnam War veterans. Fireworks are shot off to mark the hour when the South Vietnamese government officially surrendered. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: spottedcheetah - Taken from Sanskrit citraka, "leopard," related to citra, "spotted, speckled, variegated." More... fleck - Of Scandinavian origin, it came from the adjective flecked, "spotted." More... piebald, skewbald - Piebald is being spotted with irregular patches of different colors, especially black and white; skewbald is spotted white and a color other than black. More... pinto - As in horse and beans, it is Spanish for "painted, mottled, spotted." More... | |