Word: function
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Noonan inevitably begins by attempting a definition: "A bribe is an inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised." Fair enough, but what is an inducement? What is improper? At the very dawn of human society, Noonan argues, the offering of gifts for reciprocal services was a commonplace sign of good intentions. A roving tribesman might offer some bright stone to a stranger simply to show that he meant no violence. The most important strangers to be courted with such gifts were the divine forces that brought rain or wind, hence the tradition...
Most of the student crowd comes from nearby Adams House, although you are sure to see at least one Crimson staffer hunched over a Tab and fries, bivouacking before a late press run. On the weekends, after a Hasty Pudding party or a punching function. Tommy's overflows with well-dressed, poorly behaved men and women from Harvard and other local colleges. The countermen refer to these last years as "the outsiders"--the troublemakers...
...older Americans are so fortunate. Worse off are old people living alone, especially elderly blacks, the very old and elderly women. Their financial distress, though, is not so much a function of aging as it is of education, race and their past employment, factors the council found "lead to low income at all ages." Older women are particularly vulnerable. They tend to stay single after a divorce or death, lowering household income. Widowed or divorced men, in contrast, remarry at seven times the rate of women...
Polio paralyzes its victims by killing off the spinal cord's motor-nerve cells, which control various muscles. In some cases, when muscles in the chest become too weak to function properly, polio victims need mechanical assistance simply to breathe. Though many of the polio victims who survive are left partly paralyzed, they often make dramatic progress. Muscles that had fallen slack begin to work again when healthy nerve cells sprout new connecting fibers and take over the work of cells ravaged by polio...
Verbs and Keller presented their proposals in early February 1984, drawing mixed reviews in an emotionally charged open forum Debate centered on their recommendation that the Faculty establish a central office with the sole function of supervising the grievance process...