Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, November 26, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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obtuse
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Misplaced ModifiersWhen we use participles as adjectives, it's important that the noun modified is clearly stated and that the participle appears as close to it as possible. Otherwise, we run the risk of having a "misplaced modifier," which is what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Along the River During the Qingming FestivalOften called "China's Mona Lisa," Along the River During the Qingming Festival is a 17-ft (5.2-m) long panoramic painting that depicts life during the Song dynasty. The subject of several similar works painted over the next few hundred years, the 12th-century original depicts 814 people in a bucolic countryside and busy city and reveals some of the nuances of class structure at the time. Why do some scholars question the traditionally accepted translation of the painting's name? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Opens in Wales (1805)It took 10 years to build the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, which towers over the River Dee valley in Wrexham, Wales. A feat of civil engineering, it is still in use more than two centuries later, allowing boats to cross the Llangollen Canal about 120 feet (35 m) above the valley. The aqueduct consists of a narrow cast iron trough supported by stone columns and bordered by a railed path that was built so horses could tow canal boats. The span occasionally closes for maintenance. How is it emptied? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Saint Katharine Drexel (1858)The niece of a wealthy Philadelphia banker, Drexel inherited a vast fortune and used it to address racial injustice and educational inequality in the US. She established mission schools across the American West and founded Xavier University, the only historically black, Catholic university in the US. In 1891, after becoming a Roman Catholic nun, she founded a society of nuns to aid Native Americans and African Americans. The second US-born saint, Drexel is known as the patron saint of what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.Francis Bacon (1561-1626) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the granddaddy of them all— The biggest, oldest, most impressive, or most respected person or thing of his, her, or its kind. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Pilgrim Thanksgiving Day (2020)Thousands of visitors flock to Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Thanksgiving Day to watch the annual procession from Plymouth Rock to the First Parish Church. Each marcher represents one of the men, women, and children who survived the 1620 trip from England aboard the Mayflower to form the settlement known as Plimoth Plantation. The modern-day Plimoth Plantation is a living-history village that recreates Pilgrim life in 1627. Each November, Plimoth offers a variety of programs as well as period dining that features original Thanksgiving Day foods. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: huntingpark - Originally a legal term for land held by royal grant for the keeping of game animals for royals to hunt. More... sealer, sealing - A sealer is a seal hunter and seal hunting is called sealing. More... half-cocked - Comes from hunting; a gun at half cock is in the safety position—so it came to mean "incompletely prepared." More... tryst - Comes from Scottish as a variant of an old word, trist, "an appointed place or station in hunting," and now means a "secret meeting of lovers." More... | |