Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, June 23, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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extirpate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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ParticlesA particle is a word that does not have semantic meaning on its own, but instead relies on the word it is paired with to have meaning. What are the only two things that a particle is used to create? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 ChatterbotsIf you had a recent conversation with ELIZA, PARRY, A.L.I.C.E., or ELLA, you were talking to a chatterbot, a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with human users through auditory or textual prompts. Though many appear to be interpreting human input before providing a response, most chatterbots simply scan for keywords and pull a similar reply from a database. Some people find these sorts of conversations engaging. What book was allegedly written by a chatterbot? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Edgardo Mortara Kidnapped from Jewish Family after Secret Baptism (1858)Mortara, the son of a Jewish couple living in the Papal States, was secretly baptized Catholic as an infant by a panicked servant during an infantile illness. The baptism was deemed valid by the Catholic Church and, because canon law forbade non-Christians from raising Christian children, Pope Pius IX ordered the six-year-old Mortara to be taken to Rome as his ward. Several countries objected to the pope's decision and called for the boy to be returned to his parents. What became of Mortara? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Wilma Glodean Rudolph (1940)Rudolph was the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field in a single Olympic Games. She accomplished this despite having contracted numerous serious illnesses as a child, including polio, which damaged her leg and required her to wear a brace for some time. At the 1960 Games, she won gold in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay. She finished the 100-meter dash in world-record time but was not credited with the record. Why? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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live on a shoestring— To live within a very tight or limited financial budget. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.jpg) St. John's Eve and Day (Jans vakars) (Latvia) (2021)This Midsummer festival is Latvia's greatest feast of the year. It begins on St. John's Eve, when boys and girls meet in the village squares; the young people gather flowers, herbs, and grasses to make wreaths that will be used in ceremonies the following day. They also practice Ligo songs, which are based on the traditional Latvian daina, a short, unrhymed song in which epic and lyric elements are mixed. Lighting bonfires is also a tradition on St. John's Night; young people jump over the fires in the belief that it will ensure a good harvest. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: herdcutting horse - One trained to cut cattle out of a herd. More... pointer, point man - A pointer or point man was first a cowboy riding at the front of a herd of cattle. More... egregious - First meant "remarkably good" and "standing out or apart from the flock or herd; eminent"; its later derogatory sense is probably an ironical use. More... herd - As a verb, it first meant "keep safe, shelter." More... | |