Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, March 12, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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helicon
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Subordinating ConjunctionsSubordinating conjunctions are used to create complex sentences containing one independent clause and one dependent clause. What is the independent clause also known as? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 MemesA meme is an idea, thought, or piece of information that is passed from generation to generation through imitation and behavioral replication. The terms memes and memetics, coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, are the cultural counterpart to the biological study of genes and genetics. In his book, Dawkins hypothesizes that human cultures evolve via "contagious" communications in a manner similar to the gene pools of populations. What is a memeplex? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First American Girl Scouts Meeting (1912)After meeting Boy Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell, Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low organized the first meeting of the Girl Scouts in the US in Savannah, Georgia. There were only 18 girls at the first meeting, but within a few decades, the organization boasted hundreds of thousands of participants. More than 50 million American women have participated in the Girl Scouts since then, learning practical skills through character-building activities. What was the original name of the Girl Scouts? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Sir William Henry Perkin (1838)At the age of 15, Perkin entered the Royal College of Chemistry in London. It was there, just a few years later, that he discovered the first synthetic dye. Since antiquity, purple garments had been a mark of royalty, as natural purple dyes had to be extracted from mollusks or insects and were thus quite expensive. The lab-created dye made Perkin a wealthy man. In 1906, the chemist was knighted. At the time of his discovery, he had had been trying to create a synthetic version of what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.Mark Twain (1835-1910) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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be left to (one's) own devices— To be left unsupervised or uncontrolled; to be allowed to do as one pleases. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Gregory's Day (2021)St. Gregory, a sixth-century monk who became pope, is also the patron saint of schoolchildren and scholars. In Belgium, schoolchildren rise early on March 12 and parade through the streets dressed as "little soldiers of St. Gregory." They carry a big basket for gifts and are accompanied by a noisy drummer. The young girls in the procession wear big shoulder bows that resemble the wings of a butterfly. They march from house to house, pausing at each door to sing a song and to ask for treats, and the procession always includes a group of angels. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: procedureprocess, procedure - A process is a set or series of actions directed to some end or a natural series of changes; a procedure is a series of actions conducted in a certain manner, an established way of doing something. More... ceremonially, ceremoniously - Ceremonially relates to the performance of a procedure; ceremoniously relates to the performer of the procedure. More... procedure, process, proceed - Procedure, process, and proceed come from Latin procedere, "to go forward." More... seder - The Hebrew word for "order, procedure"; it is the ceremonial Jewish dinner held on the first night of Passover. More... | |