Word: aback
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...comic interlude Saturday night, Dunn was interrupted by the strains of a colonial fife and drum group, headed by a costumed George Washington, that marched up on to the stage. Taken aback, Dunn asked, "Are you sure you should be at the Radcliffe party? You have the wrong campaign, George...
Alas, childhood's innocence was bound to end sometime, and, as a mature visitor to the Fogg's exhibit Philip Guston: A New Alphabet (and new devotee of museum wall-text and peripheral literature), I was taken aback to discover that Guston's coneheads are, in fact, Ku Klux Klan members, that the cycloptic heads (not shown in this exhibition) are representations of a bedridden Guston himself, that the fairy-tale sphinx of "Nile" (1977) is an ailing wife. Symbolic, after all. But, as Guston reminisces in the excellent film documentary of his career, A Life Lived (1980), on view...
...Harvard audience cheered, and a couple people--to much laughter--yelled out the suggestion that Nader jump onstage. The candidate was taken aback, but quickly regained his composure...
...American?" A woman with sable hair smoothed back from her pointed, little face peered at me accusingly from above. Somewhat taken aback by her piercing eyes and aggressive stance, I remained silent, pressed against the back of my plastic chair. As if reaching an irrevocable decision, she sighed and said again, "You are an American...
...usually emphatic. She is asked as she sits there whether her storied who's-running-for-second-place? confidence has been overhyped. Her answer is delivered without a trace of meanness, but it is definite: "I do see it like that--that I'll win. When people are taken aback by that, I'm surprised. I would hope those women you saw racing against me last night are going to the Games to win. I don't know how realistic it is for everybody...