Word: point-blank
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Weaver's lyrics and conversation-pieces are, almost without exception, expressions of the helplessness of ordinary citizens to handle bad breaks in their lives. His "vernacular" mimics the point-blank way Americans have of admitting helplessness; but it fails to register the optimism Americans normally extract from feeling 100% free to be honest about their helplessness...
...student found this out the other day when composing a message which he intended to pack a considerable wallop. He remembered gloomily that the Federal Communications Commission had laws about forceful language, and he decided to put his problem to the Western Union girl point-blank...
...been living as an exile. Known as a Germanophile and Fascist, hardheaded, stiff-necked Augustine Valdemaras is also bitterly anti-Polish. Back in the late twenties he campaigned so vigorously for the return of Vilna* to Lithuania that Poland's late gruff old Marshal Pilsudski finally asked him point-blank in a League council meeting: "Is it peace or war?" Also of interest to Hitler is the fact that Valdemaras was associated in 1917 with a Ukrainian Mission which came to Berlin seeking German backing for an independent Ukrainian state, an idea that suits Germany today...
...friendly conversations with French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, youthful, good-looking Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich Foreign Minister, pointed out Germany's deadly fear of Communism and her desire to see a stable government in Spain-i.e., to see Generalissimo Francisco Franco win the Spanish War. M. Bonnet got a quibbling answer when he asked Herr Ribbentrop point-blank whether Germany supported Italian claims to Tunisia (see below...
...specifically interested in a possible agreement between the U. S. and Britain already bound by the 1936 Naval Treaty and two of the "democracies" which Franklin Roosevelt has intimated may eventually have to take the totalitarian powers over their knees. In response to direct questioning, Admiral Leahy had denied point-blank the existence of such an agreement. So had Chairman Vinson of the House Naval Affairs Committee. So had Secretary of State Hull. At the week's beginning, Senator Johnson had declared himself entirely satisfied. Suddenly he changed his mind, stormily asked Mr. Hull for a further definition...