Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, June 3, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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empty-handed
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Prepositions with AdjectivesPrepositions can sometimes appear after adjectives to complete or elaborate on the ideas or emotions the adjective describes. What are prepositions used in this way called? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Blue MoonThough the term is often used metaphorically to describe a rare event, a blue moon is actually, in astronomical terms, the second full moon within a calendar month or the third full moon in a three-month calendrical season that has four full moons. While most years have 12 full moons that occur approximately once a month, each solar year has about 11 days more than the lunar year. These extra days accumulate, and, every few years, an "extra" full moon appears. When is the next blue moon? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 "Casey at the Bat" Published in the San Francisco Examiner (1888)"Casey at the Bat" was one of the most popular poems in late 19th-century America. Recited in vaudeville performances and later taken up by many celebrities, the poem tells the story of an overconfident baseball player—the "mighty Casey"—who strikes out while trying to show off. Ernest Thayer, who wrote the poem, avoided acknowledging authorship for many years because he thought it was embarrassingly bad. Which two real-life towns have laid claim to being the Mudville mentioned in the poem? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Raoul Dufy (1877)Dufy was a French designer and painter best known for his outdoor scenes of gaiety and leisure, like horse races, parades, and concerts. He also designed textiles and illustrated books. Dufy studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and experimented with Impressionism and, later, Fauvism. In the early 1920s, he developed his distinctive style characterized by sketchily drawn objects on bright, decorative backgrounds. Later, he completed one of the largest modern paintings, an ode to what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?— A rhetorical question calling attention to a non-sequitur or irrelevant statement or suggestion made by another person. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Charlottetown Festival (2020)The Charlottetown Festival is devoted entirely to musicals by Canadians. Held from June through mid-October on Prince Edward Island, the festival presents three full-scale musicals every year. One of these is always Anne of Green Gables, a story about rural life on the island at the turn of the century, written by island-born novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery. The festival also offers plays for children, Sunday evening pop concerts, and a series of short plays and musical events. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: heapmogul - A small mound of snow on a ski course, from Old Norse mugl, "little heap." More... congeries - A Latin word meaning "heap or pile of disparate items" or "disorderly collection." More... midden - Traces back to Scandinavian forms mog, "muck," and dynge, "heap," and first meant "dunghill" before it denoted a prehistoric or historic refuse heap. More... accumulate - One of its Latin elements is cumulus, "a heap." More... | |