Word: element
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Crimson: In addition to the manpower element, some advisers have said reinstituting the draft might serve as a deterrent...
...previous wars. And a lot of our European friends and allies, when we push them to support defense efforts more, continually tell us that they have conscription and we don't and we should do it. But the president remains very strongly opposed to the compulsive element in the draft and for that reason we hope to avoid it just as long as we can. If we see that we aren't getting enough people then we would have to think about some other means of doing it. But at the moment, we think...the number of volunteers seems...
...unit without warning to administer urine tests on a spot basis. The tests are supposed to detect the presence of benzoylecgonine, a component of the drug. The system, like many an effective military operation, relies on surprise. Unfortunately, because of lax security in scheduling the tests, that element is not always present. Says one troubled officer: "In some places the troops find out through the grapevine about a urine test five days ahead of time. You can get most anything out of your system with that kind of lead time. We aren't close to winning any drug...
When you get to that sort of error, you are nearing a psychological abyss. It was Freud who first removed the element of accident from language with his explanation of "slips," but lately others have extended his theories. Psychiatrist Richard Yazmajian, for example, suggests that there are some incorrect words that exist in associative chains with the correct ones for which they are substituted, implying a kind of "dream pair" of elements in the speaker's psyche. The nun who poured tea for the Irish bishop and asked, "How many lords, my lump?" might therefore have been asking...
Then too there is the element of pure meanness in such laughter, both the meanness of enjoyment in watching an embarrassed misspeaker's eyes roll upward as if in prayer -his hue turn magenta, his hands like homing larks fluttering to his mouth-and the mean joy of discovering his hidden base motives and critical intent. At the 1980 Democratic National Convention, Jimmy Carter took a lot of heat for referring to Hubert Humphrey as Hubert Horatio Hornblower because it was instantly recognized that Carter thought Humphrey a windbag. David Hartman of Good Morning America left little doubt about...