Word: staidness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that apprised TIME'S writers that a new phrase had been canonized in TIME style. Disdainful of "gumchewers," he always chewed gum. Contemptuous of dead literature, he constantly held up Homer† as an example to TIME'S staff. Impatient of slow waiters, he disrupted many a staid restaurant by waving a napkin over his head to get attention. Generous, he would never lend a friend less than $5, said he was ashamed to ask for the return of a smaller...
Such was H. L. Mencken's first gleeful antic during the first week of the loftiest newspaper job in his career, the editorship of the staid Evening Sun. Thus was Mencken, his pale blue eyes agoggle, his single-breasted suit stretched across his bountiful belly, cocking a snook at his eager literary undertakers. Four years ago his plentiful enemies rushed him to his grave when he ended a nine-year editorship of the American Mercury. Said an American Spectator obituary: "It was most fitting that his last pieces were contributed to an ideologically bankrupt American Mercury and that intellectual...
...want King Edward!" had stodgy Downing Street seen such a demonstration. Thousands of London's Irishmen and Irishwomen packed the pavement before the black door of No. 10. The rousing strains of southern Ireland's republican anthem, A Soldier's Song, swelled from the lusty throats. Staid civil servants in black jackets and striped trousers poked their heads out Whitehall's windows. Suddenly the singing ceased. "Up Dev!'' roared the crowds. "A republic-no less!" A tall, gaunt, smiling man appeared for a moment on the doorstep. Then a surge of enthusiastic Irishmen swept...
...Darling Daughter," by Mark Reed is a constantly and intensely amusing study of what happens when Greek meets Roman, or when innovators and liberal thinkers throw in their lot with more staid and conventional livers. The comedy is perhaps principally one of situation, but this does not keep the characters from being creditable and highly interesting...
...celebrated French composer. The piece was called Bolero. Performed previously in Paris, it was not considered one of its composer's masterpieces, and Maestro Toscanini had programmed it inconspicuously as an hors d'oeuvre to solider stuff. To the surprise of conductor and orchestra. the staid audience stomped, clapped and howled its approval. Within the next three years approximately 500 performances of the work were given by U. S. symphony orchestras, thousands more by every conceivable combination of instruments, from jazz bands to harmonica ensembles. Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths gaped incredulously as this symphonic work began to outsell...