Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, March 6, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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imperious
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining InflectionGrammatical inflection is the way in which a word is changed or altered in form in order to achieve a new, specific meaning. Verbs are the most commonly inflected words, changing form to reflect grammatical tense, as well as mood, voice, aspect, person, and speech. Collectively, this is known as what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Lake GuatavitaLake Guatavita is a small crater lake in the mountains of Colombia that has been the site of a centuries-old treasure hunt. It is likely the source of the legend of El Dorado, which allegedly began prior to the 16th century, when a local Chibcha chief would ritually coat himself in gold dust, bathe in the lake, and cast offerings of gold and jewels into the water. Since the arrival of the Spanish, numerous attempts have been made to recover the supposed treasure. What strategies have been tried? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Dmitri Mendeleev Presents First Periodic Table (1869)The periodic table is a tabular display of all known chemical elements arranged according to the periodic law discovered by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. The elements are arranged in columns and rows according to increasing atomic number, which is defined as the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. The table summarizes the major properties of the elements and enables predictions to be made about their behavior. How many elements currently appear on the periodic table? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Gabriel García Márquez (1927?)García Márquez was a Colombian novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest 20th-century writers. His two masterpieces, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, center on themes of violence, solitude, and the overwhelming human need for love. The former text became a principal vehicle for the surrealist style of magic realism. What career path did García Márquez abandon in order to pursue writing? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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go to wrack and ruin— To fall into severe or total decay, degradation, or ruination, as from disuse or lack of upkeep. ("Wrack," a now-archaic word meaning wreckage or destruction, is also often spelled "rack.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of Excited Insects (2022)Known as Gyeongchip in Korea and as Ching Che in China, the Feast of Excited Insects marks the transition from winter to spring. It is the day when the insects are said to come back to life after hibernating all winter. In China, it is the day when "the dragon raises his head," summoning the insects back to life, and people perform various rituals designed to prepare for the onslaught. In Korea, this is one of 24 days in the lunar calendar that marks the beginning of a new season. Farmers prepare their fields and begin planting their barley, cabbage, and other vegetables. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: swordsheath - Seems to have first been a split stick that a sword could be inserted into. More... spades - As a suit in a deck of cards, it has nothing to do with spades as tools, but comes from Spanish espada, "sword." More... spay - A shortening of a French word espeer, meaning "cut with a sword." More... gladiator, gladiate - The main Latin word for sword was gladius, from which came gladiator; gladiate is an adjective meaning sword-shaped. More... | |