Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, November 24, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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onerous
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Subordinating Conjunctions Used to Convey a ReasonWe use the subordinating conjunctions "in order that," "so that," and "so" to give a reason for an action. They are interchangeable in meaning, but differ in formality. Which one is the most formal? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Yongle EncyclopediaIn 1403, Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle commissioned a massive encyclopedia project in an attempt to preserve Chinese culture and literature. About 8,000 texts were incorporated into the compendium, which covers an array of subjects including history, philosophy, art, science, and religion. Two thousand scholars worked to compile the encyclopedia, and the finished product contained nearly 23,000 manuscript rolls, or chapters, divided into more than 11,000 volumes. How many volumes survive today? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Lee Harvey Oswald Murdered by Jack Ruby on Live Television (1963)Hours after US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during a Dallas parade, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. After two days of interrogations, Oswald was being led through the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters to be transferred to a county jail when Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped out of the crowd and shot him. Millions of people saw the incident on live television. Despite attempts to link Ruby to some conspiracy, he appears to have acted alone. Where did Oswald die? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864)Toulouse-Lautrec developed his interest in art as a teen during a lengthy convalescence after breaking both his legs in separate accidents. At 21, he set up his own studio in Paris, but alcoholism brought about his early demise at 36. Even so, he left an enormous and influential body of work, which captured the atmosphere of Paris brothels and cabaret life with intense colors and remarkable objectivity. His lithographs and posters are now world-renowned. What cocktail is he said to have created? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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intestinal fortitude— Strong courage, conviction, or determination; gumption; guts. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Black Friday (United States) (2017)Black Friday usually refers either to the infamous Wall Street Panic of September 24, 1869, when Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market, or to September 19, 1873, when stock failures caused the Panic of 1873. But shoppers and retailers in the United States also refer to the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday because it marks the beginning of the Christmas commercial season and is traditionally a frenetic day of shopping. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: highesttop note - The highest in a piece of music or in a singer's vocal range. More... paramount, tantamount - Paramount means "primary, top," and tantamount means "equivalent to, same as"; paramount first meant "highest in jurisdiction." More... prime - Unusual since it can have virtually opposite meanings: "preliminary, basic" or "lowest"—as well as "finest" and "highest." More... supreme - Ultimately from Latin supra, "above," which begat supremus, "highest." More... | |
| In the News | |
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Some cancer patients have PTSD years after diagnosis, study findsA fifth of cancer patients experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a Malaysian study has found. About one-third of these still had consistent or worsening PTSD four years after diagnosis. The researchers said PTSD needed to be identified ... More... | |