Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, January 14, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Gerunds as Objects of PrepositionsGerunds are used as the objects of prepositions to describe an action that modifies another action, thus creating adverbial prepositional phrases. These can occur at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence. What is the adverbial prepositional phrase in the following sentence? "After sneezing, I always get the hiccups." More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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| This Day in History | |
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 Felice Orsini Attempts to Assassinate French Emperor Napoleon III (1858)Orsini was an Italian revolutionary in the movement for Italian unification. In 1858, he made an attempt on the life of Napoleon III, whom he held responsible for the failure of the Italian revolutions of 1848 to 1849. Although ably defended by French statesman Jules Favre, Orsini was executed. His act, designed to arouse world interest in the Italian cause, paradoxically influenced Napoleon's own decision to intervene in favor of Italian unification. How did Orsini try to kill Napoleon? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Dos Passos (1896)Dos Passos was an American writer whose World War I service as an ambulance driver and later work as a journalist led him to see the US as "two nations"—one for the rich and one for the poor. An artist to boot, he created many of the illustrations and covers for his books. His reputation as a social historian, radical critic of American life, and major novelist of the postwar "Lost Generation" rests primarily on his powerful U.S.A. trilogy, which includes what three novels? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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| Idiom of the Day | |
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lose (one's) faith (in something or someone)— To stop believing (in someone or something); to become disillusioned, embittered, or doubtful (about something or someone). (When said simply as "lose faith," it is often in reference to losing religious faith in God.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Pongal (2017)A colorful four-day harvest celebration in southern India, Pongal honors the sun, the earth, and the cow. The first day is for cleaning everything in the house. On the second day, freshly harvested rice and jaggery (palm sugar) are put to boil in new pots, and people cry out, "Pongal!" ("It boils.") On the third day, village cows and oxen are bathed, decorated with garlands of bells, beads, and leaves, and worshipped. On the fourth day, bundles containing money are tied to the sharpened horns of bulls. Young men who are brave enough try to snatch the money from the bulls' horns. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: kickcoup de savate - A kick with the flat of the foot. More... Gaelic football - A rough, football-like game mainly played in Ireland with 15 players to each side with the object of punching, dribbling, or kicking the ball into a goal. More... punt, bunt - Punt, as in "kick," may be from bunt, "push," used in baseball to mean "hit the ball softly." More... kick, punt - The dent in the bottom of a wine or champagne bottle is the kick or punt. More... | |