Word: aback
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...instinctively replied, “no.” My acquaintance scoffed, as if to alert me to the social superiority of his school to mine, inquiring, “When was the last time someone actually died at a party?” Unsurprisingly, I was taken aback: he was using number of deaths by alcohol poisoning as an indicator of the quality of the social scene on his campus...
...California to teach and wait for the muse to return. But his mind remains very focused on his homeland. "Whenever I get visitors from Kenya, they think I want to ask them large questions about politics and so on," he says with a grin. "They are always taken aback when I question them about simple things. I want to know about the new songs, new words, what are the roads like, what is the dust like? Everyday things." Because it's the simple things, the everyday things, that really bring a story to life...
...Observers far from Salt Lake City may have been taken aback by Anderson's boldness - or rudeness, depending on their view - but no one in the city was particularly surprised by this maverick politician's latest move...
...Iran from resupplying Hizballah with rockets and launchers but also to warn Lebanon that Jerusalem can set back the country's restoration even further if it chooses. Of the estimated 300 who have died so far in Lebanon, most have been civilians. For its part, Hizballah was taken aback by Israel's ferocity. In a TV interview last week, Nasrallah lamented, "Tell me about a war that was waged against a state because of two soldiers. This has never happened in history. Nor has Israel done it anytime before...
...Stopping for lunch at an upscale Crepe-Away diner, I'm taken aback by the sheer normality of the scene. Young people hanging out and flirting? Check. Bad American pop music on the loudspeakers? Yeah, got that. Families playing peek-a-boo with their kids over menus? That, too. It was a typical Lebanese scene and one that would be instantly recognizable in, say, northern California. It was easy to forget that just a few miles down the mountain roads, people could suffer an Israeli air strike at any minute - in fact, if there had been any bombings, we would...