Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, September 9, 2024)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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imperceptible
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Creating the Subjunctive MoodOne of the most straightforward ways of using the subjunctive mood is when we want to describe a wish for something to be different than it is or was. When we express wishes, we create the subjunctive mood by moving the main verb of the sentence one tense back in the past. To convey a wish about a situation in the present, what tense would we use? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Molecular MachinesA molecular machine is a minute mechanism consisting of molecular components that perform mechanical-like movements in response to specific stimuli. Chemists have synthesized a number of simple molecular machines, including molecular propellers and molecular motors, the latter of which are powered by light or reactions with other molecules and are capable of unidirectional rotation. Far more complex biological versions of these artificial nanomachines are found in living cells. What do they do? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 9-Month-Old Mary Stuart Is Crowned "Queen of Scots" (1543)When King James V of Scotland died in 1542, his two sons had already died in infancy and his only surviving child—a daughter—was just a week old. The infant Mary Queen of Scots was crowned nine months later in an elaborate coronation at Stirling Castle, where she would spend her early years. Laden with regal robes, the tiny sovereign cried throughout the entire ceremony. Soon thereafter, King Henry VIII of England attacked Scotland in an attempt to force what to happen to Mary? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Count Leo Tolstoy (1828)Tolstoy was a Russian novelist and philosopher. Considered one of the world's greatest writers, he is perhaps most famous for his masterpieces, War and Peace, a vast prose epic of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, and Anna Karenina, about the tragedy of a woman's faith in romantic love. Tolstoy was an anarchist and disapproved of all organizations based on the premise of force, including the government and the church. How many characters are there in War and Peace? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence...Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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scare (someone) silly— To shock or frighten someone very suddenly and/or severely. Hyperbolically alludes to frightening someone so severely as to cause them to lose their mind. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.svg.png) Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Father Laval (2025)This annual pilgrimage is made by thousands of people of all faiths to the shrine of Roman Catholic priest Père Jacques Désiré Laval in Port Louis, Mauritius. Father Laval came to Mauritius in 1841 and devoted himself to the spiritual improvement of the emancipated slaves until his death in 1864. The pilgrimage is held on the day of his death. It originated on the day Laval was buried, when more than 30,000 weeping people followed his bier as he was taken for burial opposite the Ste. Croix Church. A monument to him is there today, and many masses are celebrated at the shrine on the memorial day. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: objectivelimited war - A war whose objective is of smaller scope than total defeat of the enemy. More... institution - First a noun of action or process that became a general and abstract noun describing something objective and systematic. More... purposely, purposefully - Purposely means "intentionally, on purpose," while purposefully means "with a specific purpose or objective in mind." More... safe, secure - Safe and secure, now nearly synonymous, used to be more different; secure was subjective—man's own sense of the absence of danger—while safe was objective, the fact of such absence of danger. More... | |