Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, November 7, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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foregather
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using the Future Continuous for Definite EventsWe can use the future continuous to describe something that will definitely be happening in the future—that is, it is not a prediction or an expectation. Because it is a certainty, what do we often reference in the sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Lowell Mill GirlsSituated on the Merrimack River, the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, was home to dozens of textile mills in the mid-19th century. Attracted by the promise of high wages, thousands of young women came to the mills for work. Living and working together in close quarters, they developed a distinct community. When profits declined, hours were increased, wages were lowered, and the women organized strikes and started a labor reform organization. In 1853, their workday was shortened to how many hours? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Basketball Star Earvin "Magic" Johnson Announces He Has HIV (1991)Johnson had been a basketball star for more than a decade when he announced, at a press conference, that he had tested positive for HIV and would retire. He vowed to battle the disease, while confirming that neither his pregnant wife nor their unborn child was infected. As a popular athlete, Johnson helped combat the stigma of HIV, which was then predominantly associated with disproportionately affected groups such as drug addicts and homosexuals. Did Johnson ever return to basketball? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Lise Meitner (1878)An eminent Austrian physicist, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Sweden in 1938. There, she formulated the concept of nuclear fission and proposed the term for the process. Though the Nobel Prize for the discovery went to physicist Otto Hahn, the element meitnerium was named in her honor. She was critical of scientists who remained in Germany during the Nazi era yet staunchly refused to participate in the atomic bomb research that resulted from her work. Why did Hahn once give her a diamond ring? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke.Herman Melville (1819-1891) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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keep (someone) in the loop— To keep someone informed about and/or involved in something, such as a plan or project, especially that which involves or pertains to a specific group. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Hogbetsotso Festival (2020)The Hogbetsotso festival commemorates the migration of the Anlo-speaking Ewes, an ethnic group on the eastern coast of Ghana, from the ancient walled city of Notsie in present-day Togo to their current home in Ghana. The Anlo-Ewes begin the observance with a period of peacemaking. They perform a ceremony to purify the traditional stool that is an important fixture in Ghanaian culture, and they clean their villages by sweeping and burning garbage. The festival culminates with a grand durbar, or reception, of chiefs and their people, which takes place on the first Saturday of November in Anloga. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: networkburele, burelage - A network of fine lines or dots, as on a postage stamp, is called burele or burelage. More... network - Traceable to the early 16th century, it indicates a web of connections that link objects, institutions, and/or people. More... limbic system - From Latin limbus, "edge," it is the network of the brain involving areas near the edge of the cortex and controls the basic emotions and drives. More... neural, neural network - Neural comes from Greek neuron, "nerve"; neural network can now refer to computer architecture in which processors are connected in a manner suggestive of connections between neurons. More... | |