Word: abracadabra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that Mike Bezos donated, while Jeff tapped out a business plan on a laptop. On that road trip West, somewhere near the Grand Canyon, Bezos called a lawyer who specialized in start-ups. What do you plan to call your company, the lawyer asked. Bezos liked the sound of Abracadabra, but the word was a little long. "So I said, 'Cadabra,'" he recalls. "Cadaver?" repeated the lawyer. A few weeks later, Bezos changed the name to Amazon Inc., after the seemingly endless South American river...
...beginning, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [or Philosopher's Stone, as it was originally named], written by a previously unknown author named J. (for Joanne) K. Rowling, appeared in Britain in June 1997 as a juvenile-fiction title. Abracadabra! it careered to the top of the adult best-seller lists. The same eerie thing happened when the book was published September...
Every age must develop its own version of the unobtainable and chimerical quick fix: the right abracadabra to select the winning lottery number, the proper prayer to initiate the blessed millennium, the correct formula to construct the philosopher's stone. In a technological age, we seek the transforming gene to elicit immediate salvation from within...
...Everyone wants Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky," said Paul Blum, owner of Abracadabra in Manhattan's West Village, "but there's no mask for Lewinsky...
...miles gloriosus, this Belcore had a vapidity no strutting could conceal. Equally but independently ridiculous was bass Dale Travis' Doctor Dulcamara, a hobo-quack who bore an eerie resemblance to the poet Donald Hall. Dulcamara's vendor antics completely undercut his dramatic entrance and resonant "udite" ("listen!"), and his abracadabra, Darkwing Duck gesturings made one laugh out loud. If it hadn't been for the skillful comic acting of these two, the farcical plot would have been in awkward tension with the gorgeous music. Though Donizetti saves his very best for Nemorino's duets with Adina, every major character enjoys...