Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, June 11, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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lidless
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Personal Pronouns - PersonGrammatical person refers to the perspectives of the personal pronouns used to identify a person in speech and text (e.g. first, second, and third person). What is the generic "you," and when is it used? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Sir Thomas Phillipps and His Multitude of BooksAn English antiquary and book collector, Phillipps amassed the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century. He suffered from severe bibliomania—an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting or hoarding of books—and spent much of his inherited fortune expanding his holdings, which ultimately contained some 100,000 books and manuscripts and was arguably the largest collection amassed by a single individual. How long did it take to disperse the works after his death? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 King Alexander I of Serbia Assassinated (1903)Twelve-year-old Alexander Obrenovic became king of Serbia in 1889, when his father, King Milan I, abdicated. Proclaiming himself of age in 1893, he took over the government, abolished the relatively liberal constitution of 1889, and restored the conservative one of 1869. In 1903, after Alexander temporarily suspended the liberal constitution he had granted in 1901 so that he could replace certain government officials, he and his wife were assassinated. Who succeeded him? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847)An English suffragist and social reformer, Fawcett rejected the violent acts of some of her contemporaries in the suffrage movement, believing that the enfranchisement of women could be achieved by peaceful means. Her efforts as president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies from 1897 to 1919 are considered to have been instrumental in earning women over 30 in the UK the right to vote in 1918. Her older sister, Elizabeth, was the first woman licensed to do what in Britain? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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home sweet home— An expression of pleasure or relief upon returning to one's home, especially after an extended period away from it. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Sprangprocession (Dancing Procession) (2019)The Sprangprocession in Luxembourg has been held on Whit Tuesday, which falls 52 days after Easter, since the eighth century. It honors St. Willibrord (St. Wilfred), the patron saint of Luxembourg. The dance that is performed by thousands of participants in the procession through the narrow streets of Echternach has remained basically unchanged, and local bands play the same melody that was played more than 500 years ago. The procession ends up in the basilica, where the remains of St. Willibrord are buried. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: occupationaptronym - A name that fits a person's nature or occupation, like Jane House for a real estate agent. More... mechanical - Predates "machine" in English and has long had certain separate senses, such as "an art, trade, or occupation: concerned with manual work" and "practical as opposed to theoretical." More... specialization, specialty - Specialization refers to the process of becoming specialized; specialty refers to a special pursuit, occupation, or product. More... study - Based on Latin studium, "painstaking application, zeal" (from studere, "to be zealous"), study's earliest uses are surprising: "affection, friendliness," an "occupation or pursuit," and "a state of reverie or abstraction; state of perplexity." More... | |