Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, November 5, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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engrossing
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Focusing Adverbs that Partially Limit InformationFocusing adverbs are used to draw attention to a particular part of a clause. Sometimes, we want to emphasize information that isn't completely limited, but rather partially limited. What is the partially limiting focusing adverb in the following sentence? "A few people were missing at the party, notably Tom." More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The HammockA hammock is a length of canvas or heavy netting suspended between two trees or other supports and used as a seat or bed. The hammock and its name were introduced to Europeans by Christopher Columbus, who encountered them in the New World. Hammocks have been used to save space on naval vessels and as a means of conveyance—similar to a stretcher—in tropical areas. They are symbolic of relaxation and are popular with hikers. A spreader bar can make a hammock wider but comes with what drawback? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Publishing Magnate Robert Maxwell Dies Mysteriously at Sea (1991)A Czechoslovakian Jew, Maxwell fled to the UK during World War II and joined the British army. After the war, he purchased publishing house Pergamon Press. The company's success helped him win election to Parliament in 1964, but a 1969 financial scandal cost him control of Pergamon and his political career. He regained control of the company in 1974 and rejuvenated and expanded his empire. What did investigators discover about Maxwell's business dealings after his mysterious drowning death? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850)When her Poems of Passion was published in 1883, Wheeler gained notoriety for writing "immoral" poetry. Her subsequent works showed a marked change in content, focusing on temperance, religion, and sentimental, inspirational verse. Her best known poem is "Solitude," which earned her five dollars when it was published in an 1883 issue of the New York Sun. It famously opens, "Laugh and the world laughs with you / Weep and you weep alone." What inspired her to write these lines? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.Washington Irving (1783-1859) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have nine lives— To endure, continue, or survive despite a near encounter with death or disaster. From the common myth that cats have nine lives. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Guy Fawkes Day (2021)On the night of November 4, 1605, 36 barrels of gunpowder were discovered beneath the Houses of Parliament in London. The conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot planned to blow up King James I to avenge laws against Roman Catholics. While Guy Fawkes didn't originate the plan, he was caught red-handed after someone tipped off the king's ministers. The following year, Parliament established November 5 as a national day of thanksgiving. Effigies of Guy Fawkes are still burned in bonfires that night, and fireworks fill the skies over Britain in remembrance of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: reflectionepiphonema - An exclamatory sentence or reflection summing up a discourse. More... rainbow - Comes from Old Norse regnbogi (becoming Old English renboga, ren, "rain," and boga, "bend, bow") and is a bow or arch of the colors of the prism that is formed in the sky opposite to the sun by the reflection, double refraction, and dispersion of the sun's rays in falling drops of rain. More... sheet lightning - Appears as a broad sheetlike illumination of parts of a thundercloud, caused by the reflection of a lightning flash. More... | |