Word: aback
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...office. Newhouse got right to the point: Robert Gottlieb, 55, president and editor in chief of the publishing house of Alfred Knopf, would succeed Shawn, 79, on March 1. Newhouse then handed Shawn a memo, dated the next day, that announced the editor's decision to retire. Shawn, taken aback, argued unsuccessfully that the next editor should come, as the magazine's staff had long expected, from within The New Yorker's ranks...
...obviously a carefully orchestrated move bearing the earmarks of Gorbachev's style. Ever since he took power in March 1985, the Soviet leader has encouraged frankness in public attitudes toward domestic Soviet problems by mounting a campaign of glasnost, or openness. Last week, for example, foreign diplomats were taken aback by the unprecedented Soviet coverage of ethnic rioting in Alma-Ata, capital of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. Despite such newfound candor, however, Gorbachev has been unable to shake the opprobrium created in the West by human-rights violations in general and the Sakharov case in particular...
...prosecutor was taken aback. "You do?" Sensing a moment of weakness, Rutger immediately began to expound the whys and wherefores of the American Way. In a few minutes he had a convert. "But even if the United States does have the right to subvert the government of any country it chooses," the interrogator asked as he drove us to the airport, "Why does it pick...
Future editions of Beehive will be shaped, as this one is, in part by the special strengths of their performers. The audience will remain a major participant, singing along and hamming it up. "Most people know what to expect when they come in, but a few seem taken aback," says Taylor, 32. "It's like going into a museum and being given an easel." Right: the perfect museum for the '80s. The artworks come alive and parade their stuff, just like old times...
Wall Street shares that optimism. When rumors of the sale started flying on Wednesday, ITT stock jumped $4, to $49.37. It closed the week at $54. Still, many industry watchers are taken aback. Quipped Carol Neves, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, to the New York Times: "It's difficult to comprehend an ITT without a telecommunications operation. I asked them what the T's would stand for in their name, and they said, 'toil and trouble...