Today's Highlights

Word of the Day

verbiage

Definition:(noun) The excessive and often meaningless use of words; verbosity.
Synonyms:repetition, tautology, redundancy, circumlocution, prolixity, periphrasis, pleonasm
Usage: He is generally a smooth and fluent versifier, but his fluency is his undoing; he wraps up his material in too great a mass of verbiage.
Daily Grammar Lesson

How to Conjugate "Be"

The verb "be" is unique among verbs for having a huge variety of conjugations. Not only does it have irregular inflections for the past simple tense and past participle, but it also has specific forms depending on what two things? More...
Article of the Day

Offender Profiling

Featured in many popular films and TV shows, offender profiling is a method of identifying the perpetrator of a crime by analyzing the circumstances of an offense and then forming a description of the offender based on personality traits linked with the commission of such a crime. Though many criminals have been captured with the help of profiling, critics argue that it can distract from potential suspects who do not "fit the profile." What murderers have been caught with the aid of profiling? More...
This Day in History

Little Person Eddie Gaedel Has Major League Debut (1951)

At 43 inches (1.1 m) tall, Gaedel became the shortest player in the history of Major League Baseball when he made a single plate appearance for the St. Louis Browns in 1951. He arrived on the field inside a replica cake honoring the American League's 50th anniversary, amusing the crowd by popping out of it. No one suspected his true reason for being there. Browns owner Bill Veeck—a showman fond of publicity stunts—had put Gaedel on the roster. What happened when Gaedel stepped up to the plate? More...
Today's Birthday

Roman Vishniac (1897)

A Russian-American biologist, photographer, linguist, art historian, philosopher, and professor, Vishniac is best remembered for producing a photographic record of Central and Eastern European Jewish communities in the years preceding the Holocaust. His efforts were not without risk; he was imprisoned 11 times and forced to do hard labor in two concentration camps. He escaped to the US in 1940 and returned to his scientific roots, contributing to the development of what photographic techniques? More...
Quotation of the Day
Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Idiom of the Day

call it even

To acknowledge or consider a situation or exchange as being equal or equitable, as regarding debt, status, ability, a contest, etc. More...
Today's Holiday

Jeshn (2025)

Jeshn is a celebration of Afghanistan's independence from British control that has been observed throughout the country but with special ceremonies in Kabul. The Treaty of Rawalpindi, signed on August 8, 1919, gave Afghanistan the right to conduct its own foreign affairs. It was the formal conclusion of the Third Anglo-Afghan War, which actually ended in May 1919, but August is a slack agricultural period and therefore a time when more people can celebrate a holiday. The holiday has been observed with parades, dancing, games, music, and speeches by government figures. More...
Word Trivia

Today's topic: umbrella

umbrella - Etymologically, it is a "little shadow." More...

parapluie - A French word for umbrella, derived from Latin pluvia, "rain." More...

bumbershoot - Another word for umbrella, formed by combining an alteration of the word umbrella and an alteration of the word parachute. More...

nuclear umbrella - A protective status in which a nuclear state promises to use its arsenal to defend an ally without nuclear capabilities. More...

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