Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, September 20, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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cupidity
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Good vs. WellA common stumbling block for native speakers and learners of English alike is the correct usage of "good" versus "well." In most instances, good is an attributive adjective directly describing a noun. What is "well"? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Language: What Is It?Humans are the only creatures to use a form of communication that scholars consider "language"—a system of spoken sounds or conventional symbols that communicates thought. Although some animals display similar social behavior, linguists are reluctant to term it language, instead describing it as "animal communication." Still, some animals have been taught certain features of human language. Why are most animal languages considered "closed"? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Saladin Begins Siege of Jerusalem (1187)Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099 during the First Crusade and served as the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem for most of the 12th century, but it was besieged and captured by Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim warrior and Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt, after his decisive victory at Hattin in 1187. The Crusaders negotiated a surrender, and the two parties agreed to a peaceful handover of the city to Saladin, preventing the sort of massacre that had occurred when? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 James Dewar (1842)Dewar was a British chemist and physicist best known for his work on the properties of matter at very low temperatures and the liquefaction of gases. In the course of his work, he liquefied and solidified hydrogen and invented the Dewar flask. Used for storing liquefied gases, his Dewar flask—a double-walled flask with an insulating vacuum between the inner and outer walls—became essential in low-temperature scientific work. What everyday item was patterned after Dewar's flask? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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concrete jungle— An overcrowded, unsafe and/or crime-ridden urban environment or city, characterized by the congestion of large buildings and roads. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Paris Autumn Festival (Festival d'Automne) (2018)The Autumn Festival marks the start of the city's cultural season, encompassing film, photography and other contemporary arts on an international scale. Most of the theater presentations are experimental, and they have included productions from the United States, West Berlin, Denmark, Poland, and the former U.S.S.R. Composers whose works have been performed there include Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, John Cage and Iannis Zenakis, and it has featured the New York Philharmonic, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestre de Paris. Events are held in locations throughout Paris. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: weddingepithalamium - A poem written to celebrate a wedding. More... confetti - It is the plural of Italian confetto, "small sweet," as it was originally real or imitation bon-bons thrown during a carnival or after a wedding. More... morganatic - A survival of an ancient Germanic marriage custom, a gift on the morning after the wedding from husband to wife called morgangeba, "morning" and "give"; it now describes a marriage between people of different social status, especially a man of superior rank and woman of inferior rank. More... nuptial - From Latin nuptiae, "wedding," from nubere, "to marry." More... | |