Word: dove
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...People's Congress had won a majority in the new 126-seat parliament, the air was filled with the crackle of machine guns and the dull thud of exploding grenades. At the Speke Hotel, headquarters of the 60-member Commonwealth observer team that had monitored the voting, diplomats dove under the dining room tables. Asked why roaming, drunken soldiers were shooting up the city, a young private replied: "Because we are rejoicing." It was chilling to contemplate what the trigger-happy troops would have done if they had been angered by the results of Uganda's first election...
...three-meter diving events, sophomore Adriana Holy dove what coach John Walker called "the best meet of her life." Scoring mostly sevens and eights on her dives, Holy could do no wrong as she ran away with the honors in both of the diving contests...
...line," "umpteen," "pinhead," and the verb to "off" (kill) are all defined; the editors do, however, miss a couple, such as "dive," as in a bad or dangerous restaurant or bar, and "hyper." Occasional usage notes do slip into an unpleasant pedantic style: "Careful writers use dived rather than dove in the past tense." But even less frequent notes on the origin or phrases turn up interesting information; the term "poobah," for example, a person who holds many offices at once, comes from a character in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado...
...first automata in actual history were more modest in concept. Archytas of Tarentum (400-350 B.C.) built a wooden dove that was reputed to have flown. In the 2nd century B.C., Hero of Alexandria wrote a book, De Automatis, that described a mechanical theater with robot figures that marched and danced in various temple ceremonies. But the king of all robotmakers was Johann Nepomuk Maelzel (1772-1838), creator of the metronome, who also constructed an automatic orchestra called the Panharmonicon, which could simulate violins, cellos, clarinets, flutes, trumpets, drums, cymbals and triangle. For this contraption, the inventor commissioned Beethoven...
...actually been won two days earlier in Kansas City, when the Phillies staged a ninth-inning rally to win the fifth game, 4-3. Philadelphia Third Baseman Mike Schmidt, who was later chosen the Series Most Valuable Player, smashed a line drive past George Brett, his Royals counterpart. Brett dove for the ball, but it glanced off his glove and the comeback had begun. With the help of Pinch-Hitter Del Unser, who slammed a double beyond the flailing reach of Royals' First Baseman Willie Aikens, the Phillies turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead. McGraw...