Word: haplessness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...were priceless), Ball rehearsed every sequence obsessively. Yet when the cameras were rolling she made each gesture look spontaneous, each wisecrack seem an ad lib. Memorably, Lucy and her sidekick Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) took a job wrapping chocolates; as the candies hurtled past on a conveyor belt, the hapless duo tried to keep pace by stuffing half of them into their mouths. Seeking to emulate a pioneer woman, Lucy opened an oven to remove freshly baked bread -- and was pinned against the sink by a loaf 8 ft. long. At long last hired for a commercial, she grew increasingly...
...term used by a band of New York City teenagers to describe the mischief they set out to commit on a clear April night in Central Park. Looking, they said, for something to do, they roamed the park's northern reaches, splintering into smaller groups and allegedly assaulting one hapless victim after another. Finally, one pack came upon a 28-year-old woman jogging alone past a grove of sycamore trees. According to police, they chased her into a gully, then spent the next half an hour beating her senseless with a rock and a metal pipe, raping...
...ambivalent about their revolutionary forebears. Polls show that the most revered figure of the era is now the Marquis de Lafayette, who ultimately broke with the Jacobins and fled the country. After a televised re- enactment of Louis XVI's trial, only 27% of French viewers favored beheading the hapless King. One French poll even found that 17% of the country wants the return of the monarchy. Seeking new heroes, Mitterrand said last week that he will place in the Pantheon, France's national mausoleum, the remains of the Marquis de Condorcet, an influential leader of the National Assembly...
...Currier House we grant the distinction of being our fondest amusement. Each year, these hapless schlemiels manage to defy overwhelming odds and choke miserably. Squandering the legacy of a long-forgotten Marine Engineering Tutor, Currier's yachtsmen use their wondrous and speedy craft exclusively as a means to embarrass themselves. Nonetheless, their most remarkable achievement is not their genius for finding abjectly humiliating ways to lose, but their talent for having absolutely no fun in their attempts...
Truly, the hapless exploits of our 'rivals' test the limits of our boundless disdain. We would sincerely like to sprinkle faint praise upon other participants for their creativity and zeal, but in good faith, we cannot...