Word: decorum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Throughout his manual, O'Rourke maintains a tone of caustic irony. It fails to disguise a moralist concerned with a lapse of decorum and values. In a discussion of capital punishment, the condemned is told, "Try to think of something piquant to say on your way to the gas chamber. 'See you in hell, Mom,' is nice. Things like . . . 'Don't stop to mourn, organize' sound too stiff for what's basically an informal situation." It is at such times that the mask of the mockingbird slips off to reveal the owl beneath, hooting at a world he is furiously...
...every day. There are toilets with vinyl seat covers that can rotate after each use, perfect for a country in which 1 out of 5 women refuses to use a Western-style toilet outside the home. For ladies who do not want to waste water but wish to maintain decorum -- according to TOTO's investigations, women flush an average of 2.5 times per visit to drown out potentially embarrassing or offensive noises -- there is the Oto Hime (Sound Princess), which plays a recording of flushing water. "We want to change the toilet from a space that one wants...
...what they do not possess -- especially not the Caprichos and the Disasters of War -- is the sense of intellectual decorum and poise that the well-born, French-reading illuminati of Madrid preferred the discourse of images to have. Goya was not good at optimistic allegory. His large painting of the adoption of the liberal constitution of 1812 -- the constitution as a maiden in white presented by Father Time while pretty Clio, the muse of history, takes notes -- is one of his few real pictorial failures...
With seven Cabinet seats remaining to be filled, Bush's irritation over unauthorized disclosures of his selections is evident. During a recent photo session with a group of his state political coordinators, a reporter bruised the decorum by inquiring about the latest rumored appointments to his Cabinet. Bush responded with an impromptu etiquette lesson. "Talking at photo ops will continue until Jan. 20," he chided, "and after that there will be absolutely none." He added that questions shouted by reporters are "demeaning to your profession. You shouldn't have to yell at me to get an answer...
...studies well beyond the point at which they were left at the death of Anthony Blunt. It will not travel to any other museums. And it is a wonderful show, bound to correct whatever stereotypes one may have about Poussin the cold, the correct, the theoretician of mode and decorum...