Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, September 12, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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danseuse
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining VoiceVoice is a grammatical feature that describes the relationship between the verb and the subject in a sentence. There are two main types of voice: active voice and passive voice. There is also a third type of voice that is less commonly used. What is it called? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Salman RushdieRushdie is a British-Indian novelist known for the allusive richness of his language and the wide variety of Eastern and Western characters and cultures he explores. After his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was deemed sacrilegious, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or legal ruling, sentencing him to death. Rushdie was forced into hiding, where he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a novelistic allegory against censorship. What is the fatwa's current status? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Nazi Commandos Rescue Imprisoned Benito Mussolini (1943)In 1943, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was deposed by his own government. When German forces discovered that he was being held at a ski resort in the Apennine Mountains, they launched a daring rescue. Arriving on gliders, German troops overwhelmed Mussolini's captors and spirited him away without firing a shot. The operation was a major propaganda success for the Nazis. According to some accounts, what was Mussolini's reply when the paratroopers told him that Adolf Hitler had sent them? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken (1880)Often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century, Mencken was a journalist, satirist, social critic, and cynic known as the "Sage of Baltimore," for the city where he lived his entire life. Perhaps best remembered for his satirical reporting on the Scopes evolution trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey trial," Mencken was frequently critical of myriad institutions. Why did the Arkansas legislature pass a motion in 1931 to pray for Mencken's soul? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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go to hell in a handcart— To be in an extremely and increasingly bad or ruinous condition; to be on the inevitable path to utter failure or ruin. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Dally in the Alley (2020)Dally in the Alley is a one-day arts fair that takes place on the Saturday after Labor Day in the North Cass neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. The Dally began as a community block party and art fair in 1977. It expanded into a performing arts festival and moved to its current location in 1982, when it became known as the "Dally in the Alley," the name of an English pub song. Each year more than 30,000 visitors attend the festival, which includes music, a curated art show, poetry and writing workshops, children's activities, food, and refreshments—particularly beer. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: heardphoneme - A word for a hallucination in which voices are heard. More... pig's whisper - A loud whisper, meant to be heard. More... noises off - Sounds created offstage to be heard during a play's production; the term has been extended to mean distracting or intrusive background noise. More... pink noise - Random white noise that has been adjusted so there is equal energy per octave and an equal amount of each signal can be heard. More... | |