Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, January 14, 2024)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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sophistry
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Compound AdjectivesA compound adjective (also known as a compound modifier or a phrasal adjective) is created by two or more words that work jointly to modify the same noun. How are they usually joined together? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 TopographyIn Ancient Greece, topographers were charged with writing detailed descriptions of places, works that are now called “local histories.” By the 20th c, the practice of topography had evolved into the study and representation of the features and configuration of land surfaces. Topographic maps use symbols and coloring to represent elevations, depressions, and depths of water and depict the contours of both natural and man-made features. In what other scientific fields has topography been applied? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Huygens Probe Lands on Titan (2005)It took the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft more than six years to reach Saturn. During the trip, the Huygens probe remained dormant, preserving its battery life for a landing on Saturn's largest moon. The only moon in the solar system known to have clouds and a dense atmosphere, Titan resembles Earth in many ways. It was not known whether the probe would land on solid ground or in an ocean. After Huygens touched down, Titan's surface was described as being similar to what food? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Kimitake Hiraoka, AKA Yukio Mishima (1925)Born into a samurai family, Mishima served briefly in the finance ministry before going on to become one of the most important Japanese novelists of the 20th century. His novels are known for their exquisite attention to detail and character and often involve paradoxes—such as when a troubled monk destroys the temple he loves in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Following a failed coup attempt in 1970, he tried to commit seppuku, ritual suicide by self-disembowelment. How did he die? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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white coat hypertension— A phenomenon in which a patient experiences elevated blood pressure around medical professionals. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Ratification Day (2025)Though most people associate the end of the American Revolution with the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the war was not officially ended until the Treaty of Paris was ratified on January 14, 1784. The Old Senate Chamber in the Maryland State House at Annapolis has been preserved exactly as it was when the ratification took place. On Ratification Day, the ceremony that takes place inside varies from year to year, but it often revolves around a particular aspect of the original event. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: signsconjecture - First meant "the interpretation of omens or signs" or "divination," and it literally means "to throw together," that is, to produce a theory by putting together a number of facts. More... diacritic - From Greek diakrinein, "distinguish from," it denotes marks or signs that distinguish different values or sounds (pronunciations) of a letter. More... semiopathy - A tendency to read humorously inappropriate meanings into signs. More... sigla - The words for signs and abbreviations representing words. More... | |