Word: ablest
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Compounded of puns, disjointed syllables, half-words, it is closest to English, but Erse, Latin, Greek, Dutch, French, Sanskrit, even Esperanto appear, usually distorted to suggest both an alien and an English notion. The ablest punster in seven languages, Joyce sometimes combines puns and snatches of songs. Example: "ginabawdy meadabawdy!" (from a passage dealing with Earwicker's dream of a night out). Using a favorite device, he suggests that Anna Livia is the River Liffey by slyly punning on the names of other rivers: "he gave her the tigris eye," "rubbing the mouldaw stains," "And the dneepers...
Tall, curly-haired John Mason Brown (Post) is, at 38, the youngest of the newspaper critics. Probably the ablest all-round of the lot, he combines journalistic dash ("Most Hamlets look like the original interior decorator") with analytical skill. With Anderson, he has the highest critical boiling point; brought in a plausible minority report on Abe Lincoln in Illinois. He lectures far & wide, has led Variety's boxscore for best-guessing hits and flops five times in the last nine years...
National League. The only pennant the Cincinnati Reds ever won, in 53 years of trying, was the one that involved them in the scandalous Black Sox Series of 1919. That they are the experts' choice this year is due to: 1) the ablest pitching staff in the league (headed by Paul Derringer, Lee Grissom, Johnny Vander Meer); 2) some of the best hitters (Batting Champion Ernie Lombardi, Ival Goodman, Frank McCormick); 3) Manager Bill McKechnie...
...Bishop Schrembs comes of a poor Bavarian family (16 children) which sent him to the U. S. at eleven, at the behest of a U. S. bishop whom he served at Mass. Bishop Schrembs is the hierarchy's ablest hymn-writer, hymn-singer, pianist and organist. His elevation to archbishop, symbolized by a lamb's-wool pallium (resembling a stole) which will be sent him from Rome, does not carry with it a like promotion for his diocese. His title will be : Archbishop Schrembs, Bishop of Cleveland...
...Cardinal Maglione did not, however, mean that Pius XII had decided on a pro-French or pro-democratic foreign policy. It meant primarily that the new Pope had picked the most competent diplomat whom he could find to head the Papal diplomatic service, which is one of the ablest in the world. At all times the Vatican resists encroachments, Fascist or otherwise, but its tactics are based on two main principles: 1) never to become identified with any one government, or type of government; 2) that it is never a mistake to be on slightly bad terms with a government...