Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, September 25, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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neoplasm
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Ambitransitive VerbsSome action verbs can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on the context of the sentence or what information the speaker wishes to include. These are sometimes known as "ambitransitive verbs." What are some examples of ambitransitive verbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Song YingxingSong Yingxing was a Chinese scientist who authored an encyclopedia covering a wide variety of technical subjects during the late Ming Dynasty. Published in 1637, Tiangong Kaiwu—Exploitation of the Works of Nature—was divided into chapters with broad themes, including agriculture, transportation, papermaking, and the use of gunpowder weapons. Although other encyclopedias had been previously published, Tiangong Kaiwu was distinguished by its substantial inclusion of what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Sandra Day O'Connor Becomes First Female US Supreme Court Justice (1981)O'Connor is a lawyer and jurist who was the first female associate justice of the US Supreme Court. She served as an assistant state attorney general in her home state of Arizona in the late 1960s and, in 1969, was appointed to the state senate, where she became the country's first female majority leader. She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court in 1981, becoming the first female justice. Who took O'Connor's Supreme Court seat when she retired in 2006? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Mark Rothko (1903)Largely self-taught, Rothko was an American painter who became a leading exponent of a uniquely personal strain within the larger movement of abstract expressionism. By 1950, he was creating his so-called color-field paintings, works with large rectangles of color that express moods. In 1970, he committed suicide shortly after completing what some regard as his masterwork, a group of murals for a chapel in Houston, Texas. For what record-breaking price did one of Rothko's paintings sell in 2007? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. They are not meant to be spoken—only felt and endured.Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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corporate ladder— The hierarchy of authority and earning power within a large business or corporation, likened to the rungs of a ladder. Usually used with some variable verb or phrase referring to ascension. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Marshall Islands Lutok Kobban Alele (2019)The inhabitants of the Marshall Islands have long kept a tradition centered on the alele, a soft-sided basket handmade from the native pandanus plant. "Lutok Kobban Alele" is a weeklong festival that honors the basket as a national symbol and celebrates Marshallese culture in general, concluding with an official ceremony on Manit Day, a public holiday observed on the last Friday of September. Activities take place in the capital city of Majuro and include performances by Marshallese singers and dancers, feasts, traditional storytelling, and demonstrations of basket weaving and cooking. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: softenemollient, emolliate - Emollient is from Latin emolliere, "to soften"; to emolliate is to soften or make effeminate. More... macerate - Meaning "to soften," it comes from Greek massein, "knead." More... lenify, lenity - To lenify is to alleviate or soothe an emotion or suffering, from Latin lenire, "soften"; lenity means kindness or gentleness. More... amalgamate - Seems to go back to Greek malagma, "softening." More... | |