Word: sputters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...good train find this way of traveling superior in every way to the fumes and peeves of the throughways and the sardine-can intimacy of the time-rupturing jet planes. Yet, in spite of the heroic past, the U.S. has let its passenger rail travel system fizzle and sputter down into a national embarrassment, Today service is scant, schedules are unreliable and amenities are often sparse. The equipment includes, in the forthright phrase of Amtrak President Alan Boyd, "a lot of junk." The situation might be called ridiculous if only in light of the universal recognition of the passenger train...
...sputter of midnight traffic had given way to the long wait for dawn when the 1,400 inmates of Rawalpindi District Jail began to pray. Imperceptibly at first, their murmur grew as they recited from the Koran; the time for execution was approaching. Shortly before 2 a.m., the prisoner, gaunt and ailing, was led from his dungeon death cell to the scaffolding. His hands were tied behind his back. Stepping to the gallows he cried out, according to one account, "Oh Lord, help me, for I am innocent!" Thirty-five minutes later, the body was cut down, taken away...
...Joan Hickson), plan to celebrate their wedding anniversary at a restaurant. They end up snacking in bed. A thirtyish couple, Malcolm (Derek Newark) and Kate (Susan Littler), are throwing a party, but the guests' coats have scarcely been stacked on the bed when the festivities embarrassingly and ignominiously sputter...
...creators of Roots 11 have only one remaining wish, and it cannot be granted by the tooth fairy. The wish, of course, is for high ratings. ABC research predicts an audience within six share points of Roots 1, but other network observers feel that Haley's comet could sputter slightly this time out. While the original Roots aired during a tame ratings period, Roots 11 appears at the peak of a Nielsen "sweeps" month, the all important period that determines advertising rates charged by network affiliate stations. NBC and CBS are spending $2 million each to combat Roots...
Still, if the little lives of individual people sputter too briefly for careful notice, clan characteristics do take on recognizable shape. There are the Steeds, wealthy Catholic landowners, tending to be intellectual; the Paxmores, steadfast Quaker shipbuilders: the Caters, solid, intelligent descendants of Cudjo: and the Turlocks, swamp trotters and poachers. Their interlocking fortunes and catastrophes never quite qualify for the terms "gripping" or "absorbing," but they are consistently diverting. Therein lies the author's secret: an attraction that lies not so much in the story as in a serene detachment from the story. The reader gets a four...