Word: aback
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Last Autumn when Mrs. Peterkin announced a book called Scarlet Sister Mary, librarians throughout South Carolina ordered copies as a matter of course. They were a little taken aback to read the publisher's blurb that this was "the story of the harlot of Blue Brook Plantation.'' But since there are black harlots on some plantations, and everyone knows it, most South Carolina librarians read the book anyway and put it on the shelves...
Secretary Kellogg smiled, fidgeted. He and the other signatories were taken aback by the barrage of "talking movie" cameras which had previously been installed in the Salle des Horloges...
...frock-coated reception committee, taken aback, dispensed with formalities. They gave Mrs. Walker some flowers, observed her strong white teeth when she smiled, her stylish stoutness when she walked, watched the unusual grinning couple enter a motor. They decided that Mr. Walker meant what he said about his plans being "indefinite." How could such a gamin be definite? They welcomed him as "Mayor of the greatest American capital," but, as he said later: "How in Hell can one be dignified in these surroundings...
...moment, there squeezed angrily through the doorway of the dressing room a musician carrying under his arm a bass viol. Turning the instrument over, he showed three great cracks to the comedian. "How about getting the heat turned off in this the-alre?" he asked. But Lewis, not taken aback by this declared, "What! and have all of us and our little ladies catch cold,-to save that!" and he pointed disdainfully, "Why that was once just a little fiddle which got the mumps, and then look how it grew!" He opened the door graciously and the base violinist squeezed...
...seconds there was silence, except for the sound of the gassoon. A sort of taken-aback silence, as though the company did not quite know what was the correct thing to do in the circumstances. Then, as suddenly as the air had been recognized, the whole crowd joined in heartily, magnificently...