Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, January 25, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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nostrum
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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InterjectionsAn interjection, also known as an exclamation, is a word, phrase, or sound used to convey an emotion such as surprise, excitement, happiness, or anger. What are primary interjections? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Film NoirFilm noir is a style of film characterized by low-key lighting, bleak urban settings, and corrupt, cynical characters who find themselves entangled in the criminal underworld. This dark genre, which gave rise to the film archetypes of the hardboiled private detective and the femme fatale, was especially popular in Hollywood in the 1940s. Classic examples of film noir include The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Who first coined the term film noir, and what does it mean? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First Emmy Awards for Excellence in Television (1949)The Emmy Awards are given for outstanding achievement in US television. They are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which was founded in 1946 and which held the first award ceremony in 1949. Its members vote on outstanding programs, actors, directors, and writers in such categories as drama, comedy, and variety. The Emmy's name is taken from the nickname "immy" for the image orthicon, a television camera tube. Who won the very first Emmy? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 William Somerset Maugham (1874)Maugham was an English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who abandoned a career in medicine when his first novel had some success. He wrote several popular plays and a total of eight novels before writing his breakthrough masterpiece, the partly autobiographical Of Human Bondage (1915). An expert storyteller, Maugham based many of his stories on his own experiences, including what short story collection that influenced Ian Fleming's James Bond series? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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not utter a word— To be completely silent; to remain discreet (about something); to not tell anyone (about something). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Festival of the Cow (2019)The Fiesta de la Vaca takes place in the village of San Pablo de los Montes, in the Spanish province of Toledo, on St. Paul's Day. While the religious procession and mass for the feast of San Pablo are going on, a group of young men form a counter-procession in the opposite direction. One of them plays the role of the cow, La Vaca, while another is dressed as Mother Sow, Madre Cochina. A third is dressed as a shepherd, and there are others ringing cow bells. Every time the group passes the image of the saint, they call out, "Here goes the cow!" More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: ruleslect - A regional or social variety within a language, a form of speech defined by a homogenous set of rules. More... precisian - An overly precise person, a strict observer of rules and procedures. More... ring - Boxing started off in circles, and when the Marquess of Queensbury introduced a set of rules in 1867, he also introduced the roped-off square, which continued to be called the "ring." More... mistress - First meant "a woman who rules or has control," or a "woman who employs others, as servants." More... | |