Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, August 10, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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cantankerous
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Relative PronounsA relative pronoun is a type of pronoun used to connect a relative clause (also known as an adjective clause) to the main clause in a sentence. What are restrictive relative clauses? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Dunbar's NumberBefore there was Facebook, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a cognitive limit to the number of meaningful social relationships one can have. Through his research on primates and ancient hunter-gatherer societies, he concluded that brain size, specifically the size of the neocortex, dictates the maximum size of one's social group. Primates create intimacy by picking parasites off each other, while humans rely on language. How many social relationships does Dunbar believe one can have? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Ferdinand Magellan Sets Sail to Circumnavigate Globe (1519)In 1518, Spanish king Charles I approved navigator Ferdinand Magellan's plan to sail to the Spice Islands by a western route. On the way, Magellan crossed the "Sea of the South" and renamed it the Pacific Ocean because of the calm crossing. His ambitious voyage proved definitively the roundness of the Earth and revealed the Americas as a new world, separate from Asia. Though Magellan is often credited with being the first to circumnavigate the globe, he never actually returned to Europe. Why? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender (1909)Few people in recent history have transformed popular music—rock and roll in particular—the way Leo Fender did. A self-taught radio repairman, Fender began inventing electronic instruments in the 1940s and is responsible for the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, the first widely used electric bass, and many other revolutionary instruments. His Fender Musical Instruments Corporation remains a leading manufacturer of electronic instruments and amplifiers. What are Fender "Nocasters"? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 To the boy of twenty it seems impossible that he will not love as wildly at sixty as he does then ... His love will never fall, whoever else's may. Nobody ever loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of the world's experience can be no guide in his case.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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written all over (one's) face— Evident by one's facial expression. Said of one's emotions or inner thoughts. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Día de San Lorenzo (2022)St. Lawrence of Rome (San Lorenzo) was a deacon under Pope Sixtus II in the third century. His feast day is August 10. As the patron saint of Zinacantán, Chiapas State, Mexico, San Lorenzo is honored with a five-day festival that takes place August 8-11 each year. The highlight is a procession, interrupted periodically by a dance performed by the Capitanes. Each dancer holds one foot out in front while hopping on the other foot for a time, then they shift so that the opposite foot is held out. Thousands attend the festival, which includes a huge open market and a fireworks display. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: unluckydismal - Comes from French dies mali, "evil days," and first meant the 24 evil or unlucky days of the medieval calendar (two per month). More... infaust, infausting - Infaust is "unlucky" and infausting is "making unlucky." More... left-handed - Had a meaning of "unlucky" or "unseasonable." More... widdershins - Means "in a direction opposite of the usual one," but can also mean "unlucky." More... | |