Month: August 2021

select

elegant – Comes from Latin eligere, “select.” More…

eximious – Means “choice, excellent, select,” or “distinguished.” More…

garble – Originally meant “to sort out” or “to select in a biased way,” and was applied to the selection and sorting out of individual passages from a person’s writings or any separation of the good from the bad, of a selection of the worst and setting aside the better; it evolved to mean “to jumble, scramble.” More…

select – From Latin legere, “choose,” with the prefix se-, “apart.” More…

Nemoralia

The Nemoralia was an ancient Roman festival in honor of the goddess Diana held at Nemi, in the territory of Aricia about 16 miles southeast of Rome. Diana was worshipped throughout Rome and Latium (now western Italy) on August 13, the day on which her temple on the Aventine Hill had been dedicated by Servius Tullius. But her most famous cult was in Aricia, where the Nemoralia was observed to protect the vines and the fruit trees. It is still common in some parts of the Orthodox Christian Church for worshippers to make offerings of new wheat and cakes to the Theotokos on that day. Discuss

Boston's Big Dig

The tangled roadways of Boston, Massachusetts, laid out before the age of the automobile, became a traffic nightmare after cars arrived. The Central Artery/Tunnel Project, nicknamed the “Big Dig,” sought to fix the problem by rerouting the city’s chief highway into a tunnel and building additional tunnels and bridges. Though conceived in the 1970s, the Big Dig was not completed until 2007, thanks to skyrocketing costs and constant setbacks. What challenges arose during course of the project? Discuss

interchangeable

although, though – Although and though are interchangeable as conjunctions, but to start a clause, use although. More…

fungible – Interchangeable, returnable, or easily replaced. More…

convertible – If terms are interchangeable or synonymous, they are convertible. More…

inalienable, unalienable – Inalienable and unalienable are interchangeable for “unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor.” More…

Whale Falls

Whale carcasses that have sunk to the sea floor are known in the scientific community as whale falls. Around them spring up complex localized ecosystems, which feed off the rich sustenance they provide for decades. The phenomenon was accidentally discovered in 1987 by a team of University of Hawaii oceanographers, who were exploring the ocean depths with a robotic submersible. Many previously unknown species have since been discovered at whale falls. Which organisms thrive in this environment? Discuss