Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, October 19, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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profligacy
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Future Perfect Continuous TenseWe use the future perfect continuous tense to indicate how long something has been happening once a future moment in time is reached. How is the future perfect continuous tense most commonly formed? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 French IndochinaThe region that is today home to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam came under French control in the late 1800s as French Indochina. Though occupied by Japan during World War II, the area did not achieve full independence from France until 1954. Soon after independence, the Vietnam War erupted. After World War II, US President Franklin Roosevelt unsuccessfully attempted to arrange for China to acquire the region before France could regain control. What was Chairman Chiang Kai-shek's emphatic response? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Automaker John DeLorean Arrested in Cocaine Trafficking Sting (1982)After years of designing cars for others, John DeLorean went into business for himself and designed the DeLorean DMC-12, a distinctive stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors that was immortalized in 1985's Back to the Future. Prior to the film's release, however, DeLorean was better known for his arrest for cocaine trafficking than for his cars. At the time, DeLorean's car company was failing, and drug smuggling offered him much-needed cash. How did he manage to beat the rap? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Carlo Urbani (1956)In February 2003, Urbani, an Italian physician employed by the World Health Organization (WHO), was called to examine a man hospitalized in Hanoi, Vietnam, with what was initially thought to be the flu or pneumonia. Recognizing that it was in fact a new and highly contagious disease, Urbani immediately notified the WHO, prompting a rapid global response that ultimately saved many lives, though sadly not his own. The doctor himself soon succumbed to the disease he had identified. What was it? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a game of musical chairs— A situation in which people or things are moved, shuffled, or rearranged from one position to another. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bettara-Ichi (2021)The annual Pickle Market, or Sticky-Sticky Fair, is held near the Ebisu Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, to supply people with what they will need to observe the Ebisu Festival on the following day, October 20. People buy wooden images of Ebisu, good-luck tokens, and most importantly, the white, pickled radish known as bettara that is so closely identified with the fair. The Sticky-Sticky Fair was named after the way the pickled radishes were sold. Stall keepers used to dangle them from a rope so the buyer wouldn't get his hands sticky from the malted rice in which the radishes had been pickled. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: shotshot - Referring to a fluid dram of liquor, the term is fairly new, dating to 1928 (PG Wodehouse). More... deadline - Originally a Civil War term for a line that marked the distance a prisoner could go before being shot on sight. More... schuss - A straight downhill ski run, it is literally German for "a shot." More... beside the point - The expression is from ancient archery, and literally means one's shot is wide of the target. More... | |