Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, August 22, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining BracketsBrackets ( [ ] ) are similar to parentheses in that they are used to contain information that does not impact the overall grammatical structure of the sentence. What are brackets usually used to indicate within quoted speech? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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| This Day in History | |
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.jpg) First Successful Trial Run of a Steamboat (1787)John Fitch was a man plagued by misfortune. His first foundry was a failure and his second was destroyed in the American Revolution. During a short-lived career as a surveyor in the early 1780s, he was captured by Native Americans. His luck finally seemed to turn around in 1786, when he built the first steamboat in the US, and in 1787, when he demonstrated his aptly named Perseverance on the Delaware River for an audience from the Constitutional Convention. Was his good fortune to last? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908)Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer who is considered the father of photojournalism. His works, which were unmanipulated and achieved with simple techniques, are remarkable for their flawless capture of a situation's "decisive moment." He served in World War II and escaped a Nazi prison camp after three years to dig up a camera he had previously buried. He hated being photographed and was fiercely private. He claimed to have confided his secrets in someone he would never meet again. Who? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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| Idiom of the Day | |
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put the hammer down— To press down the accelerator (of an automobile) as far as possible; to accelerate to or travel at an automobile's maximum speed. Primarily heard in US. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Hunterdon 4-H and Agricultural Fair (2023)The New Jersey Agricultural Fair, held in Flemington, New Jersey, at the end of August, is a traditional agricultural fair that was started by a group of local farmers in 1856, making it one of the oldest state fairs in the country. It features a statewide 4-H lamb show and sale, a tractor pull, a horse and pony pull, and all types of car racing (mini-stocks, modified stocks, midgets, and super sprints). The fair also offers programs and exhibits of flowers, the 4-H organization, nurserymen, and various commercial enterprises. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: removalbeheadment - The removal of an initial letter of a word to form a new word (e.g. blather becomes lather). More... curtailment - The removal of the last letter of a word to leave another word (e.g. goon becomes goo). More... detail - Comes from French de-, "removal," and tailler, "cut in pieces," and means "to relate or describe minutely." More... water softening - The removal of calcium and magnesium ions from water, or their replacement with sodium, either by chemical reaction or by ion exchange. More... | |