Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, March 18, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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blackjack
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Attributive AdjectivesAttributive adjectives are adjectives that describe a characteristic (or attribute) of the noun or pronoun that they modify. What is the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive attributive adjectives? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Year and a Day RuleThe year and a day rule was an English legal principle holding that a death could not be deemed murder—or any other form of homicide—if it occurred more than a year and one day after the act that was allegedly its cause. Though it became enshrined in common law, the rule was finally abolished in 1996. Now, if an act can be proved to have caused a death, it can constitute murder regardless of how much time has passed. In what other ways has the specific time limit of a year and a day been used? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 UK Recognizes British Sign Language as Official Language (2003)Making use of space and involving movement of the hands, body, face, and head, British Sign Language (BSL) is the preferred language of deaf people in the UK and those who communicate with them, such as relatives and interpreters. BSL has regional and local dialects, and some signs go in and out of fashion or evolve over time, just like spoken words. Although English is the predominant spoken language in both the UK and US, BSL differs from American Sign Language in what ways? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (1848)In 1840, Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and the two had nine children, whose marriages, and those of their grandchildren, in turn, allied the British royal house with those of Russia, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Romania, and others. Their sixth child, Princess Louise, is regarded by biographers as the couple's most beautiful daughter. In 1871, Louise married the Marquess of Lorne and became the Duchess of Argyll. Why was the marriage controversial? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.H.G. Wells (1866-1946) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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blow the coop— To leave or escape (something). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Joseph's Eve (2019)In Valencia, Spain, the feast of the foster-father of Jesus is a week-long festival called Fallas de San Jose (Bonfires of St. Joseph). On St. Joseph's Eve, March 18, fallas—huge floats of intricate scenes made of wood and papier-mâché, satirizing everything from the high cost of living to political personalities—parade through the streets. At midnight on March 19, the celebration ends with the spectacular ceremony known as the crema, when all the fallas are set on fire. The festival is said to reflect the happy and satirical nature of the Valencians. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: tapfaucet - Probably comes from French fausset, meaning "bore, tap." More... tattoo - In the military sense—of a signal summoning soldiers to their quarters at night—it was originally written tap-too, from a Dutch word taptoe, meaning "close the tap" (of a cask), which was told to soldiers when they were expected to return to their quarters. More... tick, tickle - Tick, as in "sound of a clock," "mark of correctness," originally meant "light touch, tap," and its modern senses are recent developments; tickle is probably a derivative of this version of tick. More... tit for tat - Probably borrowed from Dutch tip for tap, "blow for blow." More... | |