Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, May 22, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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indigence
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Idioms that Start with PrepositionsMost idioms that start with prepositions are prepositional phrases and consist of a preposition followed by a noun or noun phrase. What are the most common prepositions found at the beginning of prepositional idioms? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Vampire Fish of the AmazonThe candirú is a parasitic freshwater catfish typically found in the Amazon River. The translucent, eel-shaped "toothpick fish" is reputed to be the most feared fish in the river and earned this distinction because of its proclivity for attacking and entering the human body via any available orifice, especially the urethra. The creature has protruding spines which make it nearly impossible to remove from the body without surgical intervention. How does the fish locate its human host? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Pac-Man Arcade Game Released (1980)First released in Japan in 1980, Pac-Man went on to become one of the most famous arcade games of all time. Developed by Namco video game designer Toru Iwatani, the game became an icon of 80s pop culture and is often credited with being a landmark in video game history. For the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man in 2010, Google turned its homepage logo into a fully playable version of the game. How much productivity did businesses reportedly lose from employees playing the game? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Richard Wagner (1813)Wagner was a German composer whose astonishing works made him one of the most influential figures in the history of Western music. He revolutionized the 19th-century idea of opera, seeing it as a wholly new art form in which musical, poetic, and scenic elements should come together through such devices as the leitmotif—a recurring melodic phrase used to illustrate a character or idea. His operas include Tristan and Isolde, as well as his masterpiece, a four-opera cycle known as what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a shiver down (one's) spine— A shudder felt down one's back, due to either fear, anticipation, nervousness, or excitement. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 National Maritime Day (2018)It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt who first proclaimed May 22 as National Maritime Day in 1933. Since that time, observations of this day have grown in popularity, particularly in American port cities. Ships are opened to the public, maritime art and essay contests are held, and parades and band concerts are common. Environmentalists sometimes take advantage of the attention focused on the country's maritime heritage on this day to draw attention to pollution and deterioration of maritime environments, particularly in large commercial ports like New York City. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: squeezeanguish, anxious, anxiety - Anguish, anxious, and anxiety come from Latin angere, "to choke, squeeze, strangle." More... kvetch - To complain chronically or habitually, from Yiddish kvetshn, "pinch, squeeze; complain." More... squash - As a verb, it is an alteration of quash, and means, generally, to "crush, squeeze, or suppress." More... tapioca - Comes from Tupi-Guarani tipi, "residue," and ok/og, "squeeze out." More... | |