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General To Private: What’s The Order Of Military Ranks?
Growing up, most kids have that one friend with the incredibly strict parent. You know the one—the mom or dad who instills fear in everyone so that no one ever misbehaves around them, ever. There might also be a lot of yes ma’ams and no sirs involved. Well, it’s easy to joke that these parents are as strict as military officers. But in reality, not everyone …
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Make Your Vocabulary Skyrocket with These Space Words
Our universe is unfathomably huge and getting bigger all of the time, according to the Big Bang model and the theory of universe expansion. That’s a pretty cool concept and term, right? As the theory goes, dark energy (more on this later) is causing the universe to continually stretch itself. Studying the universe introduces us to some fascinating concepts in general: black holes, rogue planets, …
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Depression vs. Anxiety: What’s The Difference?
The blues got you today? Or is that upcoming speech giving you the jitters? As unpleasant as it is, it is OK. Sudden bouts of gloominess and uneasiness are completely normal responses to upsetting or potentially dangerous circumstances, whether real or imagined. Thankfully, they are short-lived. They ebb and flow and vanish together with the triggering event. We all have bad days every now and …
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Flu vs. COVID-19: How To Tell The Difference Between Each Virus
The flu is so well-known that the term “flu-like symptoms” is commonly used as a way to describe the effects of other diseases—including COVID-19. Because its symptoms can be similar to those of the flu, COVID is sometimes compared to the flu. But medical professionals stress that the two are different in important ways. And knowing the difference is crucial to understanding the risks of …
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What Does “Auld Lang Syne” Actually Mean?
New Year’s Eve is full of traditions that are easy to understand. Counting down the seconds until the day the calendar changes, for example. Others are a little less straightforward. Case in point: singing “Auld Lang Syne”—or at least humming along while it plays on TV in the background. Don’t blame yourself if you don’t know the lyrics despite the song making the rounds every …
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The Rosetta Stone: Unlocking Ancient Egypt
Each year, millions of visitors flock to the British Museum in London to catch a glimpse of the famous Rosetta Stone behind a glass case. But why exactly did a broken stone slab become one of the most celebrated artifacts in the world? Let’s find out by unearthing this fascinating object’s history and legacy. Written in 196 BCE, the Rosetta Stone text features three different …
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The Top 11 Game Shows For Word Fans (Including _AYS _ _U)
So, you’ve already completed the day’s Wordle and won six games of Scrabble against your phone. What’s a bored word lover to do? Allow us to suggest a game show! That’s right—while we’ve all been playing on our phones, TV and radio game shows have quietly become one of the most riveting ways for certified wordies to get their fix. From new Wordle-inspired games to …
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How The Letter “X” Creates More Gender-Neutral Language
by Rory Gory The letter X is often used to represent the unknown or the indescribable. In English, there are so few words beginning with X that in Samuel Johnson’s famous early dictionary, X was defined as, “a letter, which, though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language.” The mathematician and philosopher René Descartes used the letter X to represent variable …
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What’s So “Sinister” About The Left Hand?
When you think of something (or someone) sinister, there’s a good chance it’s not a pleasant picture. Sinister is an adjective that means “threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble.” That shadowy, sinister figure lurking in the dark alley, for example. But the word sinister, which comes from Latin, originally meant “left” or “on the left hand or side.” Even back in Latin, though, sinister …
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Stuffing vs. Dressing: Do You Know the Difference?
Turkey is the traditional star of the Thanksgiving meal, but among its essential supporting cast is one dish whose name is debated every year. Is it called stuffing or dressing? Are these two words interchangeable? Or do they actually refer to different things altogether? Pull up a chair as we explain the difference between these words as well as their overlap and origins—and the other …
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17 Musical Terms Derived From Italian
If you take a cursory glance at almost any sheet music, particularly for classical music, you will see a hodgepodge of Italian terms such as piano, staccato, crescendo, just to name a few. How did the Italian language come to dominate musical notation? To answer this question, we need to know a little bit about the history of music. The music staff (a set of …
