Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, August 16, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pernicious
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Collective NounsCollective nouns are nouns that refer to a collection or group of multiple people, animals, or things. They usually function as singular nouns in a sentence, but they are occasionally used as plurals, too. What are some examples of collective nouns that can only be plural? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Dead Man's SwitchA dead man's switch is an emergency brake that automatically activates to stop a vehicle or machine in the event that the operator becomes incapacitated. This sort of safety measure became necessary with the advent of electric trains, since they cut the number of required operators down to one, and has become standard in numerous devices, including snowblowers, lawn mowers, and saws. Though developed as a fail-safe, a dead man's switch can sometimes be a "fail-deadly," as when built into what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First Transatlantic Telegraph Sent (1858)After the introduction of the working telegraph in 1839, the idea that countries and continents could be connected by a communications network became an exciting possibility. A working telegraph could transmit in mere minutes messages that had once taken weeks to deliver by sea. England and France were linked by submarine cable in 1850, but it took several attempts over the next eight years before a lasting connection could be maintained across the Atlantic. How long was this cable operational? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Dame Mary Gilmore (1865)Gilmore was a prominent Australian socialist poet and journalist who gained a reputation as a champion of the working class and the oppressed. In the late 1890s, she moved to the New Australia utopian socialist settlement in Paraguay, but she returned to Australia following its failure. In 1908, she became an editor of the Australian Workers' Union newspaper, and she published her first volume of poems two years later. On what denomination of Australian currency does her image and poetry appear? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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you shouldn't have— A message of thanks for a (usually unexpected) gift. Can be used sincerely or sarcastically. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Pine Battle of Vinuesa (2022)The Pine Battle or Pinochada of Vinuesa in the province of Soria, Spain, takes place where King Juan I located his main residence in the 14th century. On August 16, the final day of the festival, there is a ceremonial mock battle in which the women of Vinuesa attack the men with pine branches. Centuries ago, when an image of the Virgin was found between two pine trees near the boundary between Vinuesa and Covaleda, a quarrel broke out over who would keep the image. The women tore branches from the pine trees and used them to strike their opponents, thus winning the battle for Vinuesa. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: mineraldiamond - Developed from adamant—the name of the hardest stone or mineral of ancient times—from Latin adamans, from Greek adamas, "invincible" (a-, "not," and daman, "to tame"). More... Formica - Got its name from being created as a substitute "for mica," a mineral. More... mineral - Etymologically "something obtained by mining," from Latin minera, "ore." More... snow - Technically a mineral, it is Teutonic in origin, from an Indo-European root shared by the Latin words niv-/nix and Greek nipha; the spelling snow first appeared in English around 1200. More... | |