Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, July 14, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
statuesque
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Conjunctive AdverbsConjunctive adverbs (also called linking adverbs or connecting adverbs) are a specific type of conjunction specifically used to connect two independent clauses. What punctuation mark is traditionally used when we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
.jpg) The Vegetable Lamb of TartaryThe Vegetable Lamb of Tartary was a fanciful plant from Central Asia that grew lambs as its fruit. The stalks bent down to allow the lambs to graze nearby, and when the lambs ran out of food, the plant would die and the lambs could be harvested. The plant is described in a much-embellished 14th-century travelogue attributed to Englishman John Mandeville. Though the story of a wool-bearing plant was used to explain the existence of cotton, what other actual plant inspired this legend? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 St. Mark's Campanile Collapses (1902)Originally built in the 9th century, St. Mark's Campanile is the 323-foot (98.6-m) bell tower of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy. It has been damaged many times in its history, including by fire and an earthquake. In 1902, a crack appeared in its north wall. On the morning of July 14, the campanile collapsed. Remarkably, no one was killed by the collapse, and only one building was damaged. Reconstruction of the campanile was completed in 1912. What was the one casualty of the collapse? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Emmeline Pankhurst (1858)Pankhurst was a leading British suffragette. In 1889, she founded the Women's Franchise League, which in 1894 secured for married women the right to vote in local elections. She later advocated militancy, mainly in the form of arson, and was once arrested 12 times in a year. During World War I, she organized a rally of 30,000 women to encourage employers to let men fight while women did their jobs in England. What did her supporters hand out to every young man they encountered in civilian dress? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
look askance upon (someone or something)— To view or regard something in a disapproving or distrustful manner. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Bastille Day (2021)The Bastille was a 14th-century fortress that became a notorious state prison in Paris. An angry mob assaulted the Bastille—which had come to symbolize the French monarchy's oppression of the people—on July 14, 1789, freeing the political prisoners held there and launching the French Revolution. July 14 has been celebrated since that time in France as Fête Nationale, as well as in French territories in the Pacific, with parades, fireworks and dancing in the streets. In Tahiti and the rest of French Polynesia, it is called Tiurai or Heiva, and is celebrated for most of the month. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: ignoranceagnosy, agnoiology - Agnosy is another word for ignorance and agnoiology is the study of human ignorance. More... ignotism - A mistake due to ignorance. More... nescience, inscience - Nescience and inscience both mean "ignorance." More... sophomoric - Includes the roots soph-, "wise," and moros, "fool"—so the contrast between wisdom and ignorance is built right into the word. More... | |