Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, May 20, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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gyrate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Prepositions with VerbsCertain verbs require prepositions in order to connect to their sentences’ objects. These combinations are also known as prepositional verbs. How do prepositional verbs differ from phrasal verbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Rule of ThumbNow used to refer to a convenient principle with a broad application not intended to be strictly accurate in every situation, the term "rule of thumb" first appeared in print in Sir William Hope's The Compleat Fencing-Master in 1692. The phrase is thought to have originated with woodworkers who used the length of their thumbs, rather than rulers, for measurements. However, it is often erroneously claimed that the term originally referred to a law that limited the thickness of what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Shake-Speares Sonnets First Published (1609)Shakespeare penned 154 sonnets in his lifetime. Likely written sometime in the 1590s, the majority of the poems were first published in a 1609 work titled Shake-Speares Sonnets. The first 126 of the 154 sonnets are addressed to a young man whose identity has long intrigued scholars. The publisher, Thomas Thorpe, wrote a dedication to the first edition in which he claimed that a person with the initials WH had inspired the sonnets. What are some theories about who the man might have been? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Dolley Madison (1768)Dolley Madison was the wife of US President James Madison, whom she married in 1794, after the death of her first husband. Noted for her magnificence as a hostess as well as for her charm, Dolley was an extremely popular first lady and was a great asset to Madison's political career. During the War of 1812, she saved many state papers and a portrait of George Washington from the advancing British soldiers. Why did she perform the duties of the first lady during Thomas Jefferson's administration? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The truth is, we each of us have an inborn conviction that the whole world, with everybody and everything in it, was created as a sort of necessary appendage to ourselves. Our fellow men and women were made to admire us and to minister to our various requirements.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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fountain of youth— Anything reputed or promising to restore one's youth, vitality, or health, or at least the appearance thereof. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Cameroon National Day (2019)National Day is a public holiday commemorating the people's vote to establish a united Republic of Cameroon on May 20, 1972. This day is also known as Constitution Day. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: usefulalpha version, preview version, beta version - Alpha version describes a development status that usually means the first complete version of a program or application, which is most likely unstable, but is useful to show what the product will do to, usually, a selected group—and is also called preview version; the beta version is usually the last version before wide release, often tested by users under real-world conditions. More... index fossil - One useful for dating and demonstrating the relation between strata in which it is found. More... putti - Cupids that make themselves useful, as in old paintings; the singular is putto. More... decorative arts - Any of the arts that create entities that are both useful and beautiful. More... | |