Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, September 13, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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arboreal
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Conjunctive Adverbs and PunctuationWhen we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb, they are traditionally separated with a semicolon. It is also acceptable to use a period and keep them as two discrete sentences. Either way, the conjunctive adverb typically begins the second clause and is followed by what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Mail ArtSome claim that mail art, an art form that uses the postal system as a medium, began when Cleopatra had herself delivered to Julius Caesar in a rolled-up carpet, but the thousands-strong, international network of mail artists as it exists today is a more recent development, evolving between the 1950s and 90s. Mail artists typically exchange ephemera in the form of decorated envelopes, illustrated letters, artist trading cards, and many other items. Who is deemed the pioneer of modern mail art? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 UN General Assembly Adopts Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)Over two decades in the making, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was finally adopted in 2007 despite opposition from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US. The non-binding declaration prohibits discrimination against the world's estimated 370 million indigenous people and outlines their rights, among them the rights to culture, identity, language, employment, and education. What were some of the key issues that delayed the drafting and adoption of the declaration? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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.jpg) Sherwood Anderson (1876)After serving briefly in the Spanish-American War, Anderson became a successful advertising man and then manager of a paint factory before suffering a nervous breakdown. Dissatisfied with his life, he abandoned both his family and his job to devote himself to writing. His best-known work is the short story collection Winesburg, Ohio, and his prose style, based on everyday speech, influenced writers Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. He died after accidentally swallowing what object? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.Edwin Abbott (1838-1926) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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put the hammer down— To press down the accelerator (of an automobile) as far as possible; to accelerate to or travel at an automobile's maximum's speed. Primarily heard in US. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Night Show (2018)The Pendleton Round-Up is one of the best-known rodeos in the West, held since 1910 in the small ranch town of Pendleton, Oregon. Happy Canyon was inaugurated four years later and evolved into the present-day Happy Canyon Pageant, a presentation by Northwest Indian tribes that features a teepee encampment and ceremonial dancing. In between, the rodeo features the standard competitions—bronco riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, and calf and steer roping. Additionally, there are wild horse and stagecoach races and wild-cow milking. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: mushroommushroom - Before it was a mushroom, it was called either toadstool or funge, from Latin fungus; small mushrooms are called "buttons," medium-sized ones are "cups," and the largest are "flat" or "open" mushrooms. More... fly agaric - A mushroom with a narcotic juice that, in sufficient quantities, is poisonous. More... pileated - Etymologically means "capped," like a mushroom, but now refers to a bird with a crest on the top of the head from the bill to the nape. More... shiitake - Japanese for "evergreen beech, chinquapin" (shii) and "mushroom" (take). More... | |
| In the News | |
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Giraffes Aren't Just Giraffes. Turns Out There Are Four SpeciesA new genetic analysis of giraffes, an animal once thought to represent a single species called Giraffa camelopardalis, has revealed that the genus Giraffa actually contains at least four distinct species. The findings, published Thursday in Current ... More... | |