Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, July 10, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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nonviolence
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Infinitives vs. Base Forms (Bare Infinitives)The base form of a verb is simply the infinitive without the particle "to"—like an infinitive, it is uninflected for tense and person. Because of this similarity, the base form of a verb is often known as a bare infinitive. However, infinitives and base-form verbs function differently—in what ways? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Mad as a March Hare"Mad as a March hare" is an idiomatic phrase derived from the excitable and unpredictable antics of hares during their breeding season, often incorrectly believed to occur only in March. Though the phrase has been in continuous use since the 16th century, it was popularized by Lewis Carroll in his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in which the March Hare co-hosts a tea party with the Mad Hatter. What are some of the strange behaviors displayed by hares during mating season? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Seveso Disaster (1976)Around noon on July 10, 1976, an explosion occurred in the ICMESA manufacturing plant north of Milan, Italy, releasing a poisonous cloud of dioxin gas. Although dioxin is toxic—it was an ingredient in the herbicide Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War—evacuation efforts began slowly. Named for the small Italian town most affected, the Seveso disaster led to legislation aimed at preventing chemical accidents. How many animals were slaughtered to prevent toxins from entering the food chain? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Marcel Proust (1871)One of the great literary figures of the modern age, Proust was a French author who is best known for À la recherche du temps perdu, his 3,200-page masterpiece. After the death of his mother, the asthmatic Proust increasingly withdrew to eccentric seclusion, where he wrote his multivolume, semiautobiographical work. The discursive novel explores issues of human psychology, time, memory, and desire, but Proust died before completing it. What is the English translation of his novel's title? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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not a peep from/out of (someone)— Not a single word or sound from someone. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bahamas Independence Day (2018)The Bahama Islands gained independence from Great Britain at 12:01 a.m. on this day in 1973. The islands had been a British colony for nearly 250 years, but are now a commonwealth, with their own prime minister and parliament. Businesses are closed on the tenth, a legal holiday, but festivities go on for a week with parades and celebrations. A fireworks display at Clifford Park in Nassau on July 10 tops off the celebrations. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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| In the News | |
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Woman's selfies capture moving lump on face: a parasiteIn selfies, a woman documented a lump under her skin for weeks before doctors were able to remove it -- and it didn't stay in one place, according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The lump appeared after the unnamed woman, 32, visited ... More... | |