Word: second-best
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...Second-Best Bed. "Shakespeare led a life of allegory," wrote Keats. "His works are the comments on it." The allegory is gap-filled, encouraging the strange game of pseudoscholarship designed to show that Shakespeare did not really write the plays, that he was a front man for Sir Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford,* or Christopher Marlowe or Sir Walter Raleigh or Queen Elizabeth or even the Bard's wife, Anne Hathaway. Amateur cryptographers have thought they found hidden codes in Shakespeare's writing, pointing to the true authors...
...Anne's pregnancy was no great scandal, but her age -an antique 26 or so to Will's 18-was. The sole clue as to how they got on together is a rather ambiguous bequest in Shakespeare's will: "Item, I give unto my wife my second-best bed with the furniture." Since Will spent most of his mature years in London, leaving Anne and their children behind in Stratford, it might be argued that she had always had the second-best...
Actual industry sales of major appliances are running 4.2% behind those last year, estimates Hotpoint, and that was the second-best year in the industry's history. Main reason for the cutbacks now is excessive dealer inventories. The manufacturers overproduced and the dealers overstocked last fall in anticipation of the steel strike. Now dealers want to reduce their inventories before reordering. Since retail buying is holding up fairly well, most appliance makers expect a pickup in orders the last half of the year as dealer inventories drop...
...hotel's management had an anguishing problem of protocol. Johnson, the first incipient President to arrive, was lodged, as was his right, in the best suite, and Hubert Humphrey had to make do with the second-best suite. As soon as Johnson departed, Hubert was moved into the best suite. The advance team for Jack Kennedy was offered the second-best suite for their man, but the offer was declined. Jack preferred to be on the ground floor. The relieved room clerk assigned him to Room 103 and moved Missouri Representative Charlie Brown, the lonesome representative of absent Stuart...
Given a two-minute head start, Hamlin quickly showed he had no need for such generosity, as he increased his lead and won comfortably in the time of 18:15. Mark Mullin had the second-best clocking over the three and one-half mile course, an 18:36 effort...