Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, June 16, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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polliwog
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Modal Auxiliary Verbs - WillAs a modal auxiliary verb, "will" is particularly versatile, having several different meanings and functions, including to form future tenses. It is also used to express an expected hypothetical outcome in what type of sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Seizure Response DogsWhen their epileptic handlers experience seizures, these response dogs come to the rescue by pulling away dangerous objects, attempting to rouse them if they lose consciousness, and even summoning aid by finding another person or activating a medical alert or pre-programmed phone. Because epilepsy is such a wide-ranging condition, each dog is trained for a specific individual's needs. Studies in which dogs were trained to anticipate their owners' impending seizures have shown what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Abraham Lincoln Delivers His "House Divided" Speech (1858)In 1858, Lincoln was nominated to challenge incumbent Illinois senator Stephen Douglas for his seat. At the state Republican convention, he accepted the nomination with a now-famous speech explaining his view that the US could not exist with both slave and free states—as "a house divided against itself cannot stand." He lost the race but won the presidency two years later. When and by whom had the same biblical reference previously been used to describe the national rift over slavery? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Joyce Carol Oates (1938)Oates is an American author of over 50 novels and numerous volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won the National Book Award and the O. Henry Award and has been thrice nominated for a Pulitzer. She writes about modern American life and the connection between violence and love. Her characters are mainly ordinary, inarticulate people to whom terrible things happen. Her most famous short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is based on what real-life serial killer? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory...The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak…We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.Jane Austen (1775-1817) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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H-E-double-hockey-sticks— A euphemistic spelling of "hell," referring to each L resembling a hockey stick in shape. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Martyrdom of Guru Arjan (2020)Guru Arjan (1563-1606) was the fifth of the Sikh gurus and the first to be martyred. He was known for compiling the Adi Granth, the "First Collection" of Sikh scripture. People commemorate Guru Arjan's martyrdom by visiting gurdwaras, places of worship, for special services. In India, where the weather is exceptionally hot at this time of year, it is traditional for Sikhs to make drinks available to every passerby—a reminder that part of Guru Arjan's torture before his death was being deprived of water. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: intoxicatednappy - Describing a beer that has a head and is foaming—or a person who is slightly intoxicated. More... capernoited - Slightly intoxicated. More... groggy - From grog, "spirits mixed with water," it first meant "intoxicated." More... temulent, temulency - Temulent means drunken or intoxicated; temulency is intoxication. More... | |