Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, November 11, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
otiose
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Defining Modal Auxiliary VerbsA modal auxiliary verb is used to change the meaning of other verbs by expressing modality—that is, asserting (or denying) possibility, likelihood, ability, permission, obligation, or future intention. What are modal verbs unable to do? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Liquid CrystalsLiquid crystals are substances that flow like liquids but are composed of highly organized molecules similar to those in solid crystals. Their unusual and often manipulable optical properties have given rise to their widespread use in technology, such as in liquid crystal displays, or LCDs. Some liquid crystals change color depending on temperature or stress. Many common substances—such as cholesterol and solutions of soap—are liquid crystals. What virus exists in a liquid crystal state? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Kaprun Disaster Leaves 155 Dead (2000)High above the Austrian ski resort of Kaprun, a funicular railway car carrying over 160 people to a glacier caught fire after a defective heater ignited hydraulic brake fluid in the rear of the car. Only partway through a 2-mi (3.2-km) tunnel, the car came to a sudden halt. As the fire grew, the passengers were plunged into darkness and trapped behind inoperable doors. Almost all who managed to escape the burning car suffocated in the tunnel. How did the 12 survivors manage to escape to safety? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922)An influential American writer, Vonnegut used wry, black humor to highlight the horrors of 20th-century civilization. His novels, which include Breakfast of Champions and Player Piano, are frequently satirical and pessimistic, yet morally urgent. The best-selling Slaughterhouse-Five was based on Vonnegut's experience of surviving the firebombing of Dresden. Which of Vonnegut's novels was accepted by the University of Chicago as his thesis for an anthropology degree? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions.Homer (900 BC-800 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
speak of the devil, and he shall appear— An acknowledgment of a person who has arrived just as or after he or she was being discussed. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Gansabhauet (2021)Gansabhauet is held only in the country town of Sursee, Lucerne Canton, Switzerland, on St. Martin's Day. A dead goose is hung by its neck in front of the town hall, and young men draw lots to take turns trying to knock it down with a blunt saber. (Gansabhauet means "knocking down goose.") The men—blindfolded and wearing red robes and big round masks representing the sun—get only one try at the bird. While the men whack at the goose, children's games take place: they scale a stripped tree, race in sacks, and compete to see who can make the ugliest face. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: mechanismmechanical pencil - Pushes graphite out by a mechanism such as a spring or a screw. More... pinwheel - Originally a mechanism in a clock. More... gadget - May come from French gachette, which is or has been applied to various pieces of mechanism, or from Gaget, the person who created the first so-called gadgets—miniature Statues of Liberty sold in Paris—or from a Navy term for a tool or mechanical device for which one could not recall the name. More... rack, pinion - Rack is the linear gear and pinion is the circular gear in a mechanism. More... | |