Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, April 4, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pendent
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Participle Phrases in Initial PositionWhere a participle phrase appears in a sentence changes the way we punctuate it, as does its importance to the meaning of the sentence as a whole. When a participle phrase occurs in the initial position, how is it usually separated from the rest of the sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 CicadasA cicada is an insect with a stout body, a wide, blunt head, protruding eyes, and two pairs of membranous wings. Male cicadas have platelike membranes on the thorax, which they vibrate like drum heads, producing a loud, shrill sound. The Magicicada species have the longest known life cycles of any insect--17 years. They live only one week as winged adults, however, spending the rest of the time in the form of larvae, burrowed underground. To what are their long life cycles an adaptation? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Bodies Found in Unsolved Hinterkaifeck Murders (1922)In 1922, Hinterkaifeck, a small farmstead north of Munich, became the scene of one of the most puzzling unsolved crimes in German history. On the evening of March 31, the farm's six inhabitants, ranging in age from two to 72, were brutally murdered. The perpetrator likely remained at the farm for several days thereafter, but by the time the crime was discovered, he or she had disappeared without a trace. What unexplained events supposedly occurred there in the days leading up to the slaughter? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Dorothea Dix (1802)Dix left an unhappy home at age 10 to live with her grandmother in Boston. By age 14, the resourceful Dix was on her own and working as a schoolteacher. In 1841, while teaching in a Massachusetts prison, Dix saw firsthand the inhumane way that mentally ill prisoners were treated. Appalled, she became a pioneer in the movement for humane treatment of the insane. Her efforts brought about widespread reforms in both the US and Canada. What position did Dix hold during the US Civil War? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Very few of us are what we seem.Agatha Christie (1890-1976) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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marry beneath (oneself)— To marry someone who is of a lower social class or standing than oneself. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of San Isidro of Seville (2018)St. Isidro (c. 560-636), or Isidore, was born in Cartagena, Spain, and eventually became bishop of Seville. In Río Frío, Colombia, April occurs in autumn and is typically very dry. On San Isidro's feast day, April 4, townspeople process the saint's image around the streets in the hope that he will help bring rain. The procession takes two steps forward, then one step backward, and so on, with the idea that if it drags out long enough, some rain may fall before the festivities end. If no rain falls, those who had been singing praises to St. Isidro may begin to insult and swear at him. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: moraliniquity - Absence of moral or spiritual values or an unjust act, it is a combination of in-, "not," and aequus, "equal, just," from Latin. More... moral, morality - Latin mor/mos, "custom," is the starting point of moral, morality, and other related words. More... | |
| In the News | |
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Your Baby is Doing Little Physics Experiments All the TimeWhen an infant sees an object behave in a surprising way, she does everything she can to learn more about its mysteries, and the initial surprise ends up helping her learn. A new study suggests that a baby can identify an unusual object as being more ... More... | |