Word: nissen
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...liked by nobody. Oxford is now a crowded place, with 7,000 enrolled-2,000 more than in prewar days. The old college suite of bedroom and sitting room, with a servant for every "staircase," has given way to the shared austerity of a frequently servantless "bed-sitting-room." Nissen huts (British version of Quonset huts) squat in the quads; the students roam far & wide in search of "diggings" (off-campus rooms) in increasingly industrial Oxford town...
Here again Olivier helped out Shakespeare. Shakespeare gave to a cynical soldier the great speech: But if the cause be not good, etc. Olivier puts it in the mouth of a slow-minded country boy (Brian Nissen). The boy's complete lack of cynicism, his youth, his eyes bright with sleepless danger, the peasant patience of his delivery, and his Devon repetition of the tolled word die as doy, lift this wonderful expression of common humanity caught in human war level with the greatness of the King...
Marlene Dietrich received an accolade from Manhattan's autograph puppies, who rewarded her willingness to sign by adopting her as "Aunt Minnie." Top-ranking non-collaborators, reported the bobby-sox collectors, were "Gruesome Garson," "Gravel Gertie Nissen" and "Break-Your-Arm Benchley...
Delegates ate "austerity" cakes (without icing), drank sugarless coffee, stared enviously from crowded hotel rooms at the snug Nissen huts in London's parks. The war without parades had produced a peace conference without glamor...
...million Londoners are homeless, hundreds of thousands are living in "acute discomfort." Lack of labor, materials, time have made it impossible to rebuild wrecked houses. This winter at least 10,000 Nissen-type Army huts will dot the London landscape as emergency shelters. But they will shelter only a fraction of the homeless...