Word: preciously
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...favorite argument for dictators is that they impose order and thus smooth the way for improvements, but in 20 years of Francisco Franco, the Spanish economy has seen precious little improvement. Partly to blame were the aftermath of Spain's ruinous Civil War, the international war that followed, and the long years of political isolation. But the rest lay in Franco's inept administering, in Spain's archaic economic system, and perhaps in those national qualities described by a 19th century Spanish statesman: "I do not know where we are going, but I do know this-that...
...There is precious little laughter in this text. Even the clown is the merest shadow of his traditional former self. The showing up of Parolles for what he is, though richly deserved, is not really funny. Nor is it comical to see a count try to weasel out of his King's command; or to see him coldly desert his wife on their wedding day; or to see a woman arrange for her husband to commit (as he thinks) adultery...
...year. First test for every compound involves at least 18 mice, and the consumption of mice is enormous-more than 2,000,000 last year. All must be of pure, inbred strains. One of Rod Heller's worries is that the supply of these precious mice may not keep pace with the demand...
...Queen, to most Canadians, is particularly precious as "something we have that the Americans don't have." Explained a businessman: "We Canadians need a symbol to rally round." And he added tartly: "On the U.S. scene there is a vacuum. After all, you can't rally round the country's most prominent golfer...
...mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him," and as up-to-date as a London councilor's remark: "Every man carries his caste mark in his mouth." But last week, with diction and elocution classes flourishing throughout Britain and the BBC spreading its own slightly precious brand of proper accent into every home, caste-conscious Britain was still confronted by an unexpected phenomenon of the welfare state: equality of opportunity had eased the economic tensions in Marx-proclaimed "class conflict," but it had led to a sharp increase in what the sociologists call "status conflict...