Word: acumen
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...Saturday Evening Post's idea of a teacher (see p. 30) is the conception of a school janitor as a humble worker, patronized by teachers, bedeviled by pupils. In New York City a head janitor may make up to $64,500 per year, depending on his own acumen and parsimony. Instead of being paid a salary plus expenses he is allotted a lump sum with which he hires assistants and buys supplies, pocketing what is left. That a janitor is no personage to trifle with has twice been discovered by New York's fiery Mayor LaGuardia: once, when...
...every day, takes a nap before dinner, stays up most of the night, has a dirt phobia, orders coffee before soup when dining out, arrives late for all engagements, laughs in a deafening high-pitched guffaw. The oddities of Mr. Marshall's behavior do not argue lack of acumen. Onetime partner in a small-time vaudeville act with Cinema Director Monta Bell, he built up his string of laundries, conveniently situated in a city where the percentage of stiff shirts and white ties is abnormally high, from a single run-down mangling establishment which he inherited from his father...
Politically the expansion of the President's multimillionaire plan into a general tax bill did great credit to the Roosevelt acumen. He had spoken only for taxing the very rich. The rest had followed of its own accord. He pointedly told his press conference that he had not agreed with Chairman Doughton to put any taxes upon "little fellows": he had merely told Congress to write its own bill, promised that the Treasury would supply facts and figures, recommend nothing. Thus his political position was perfect: his Treasury would be replenished by new taxes, the "Share-the-Wealthers" would...
...extremely scientific, insisting that these places were only traditional sites, with no great certitude connected with any given spot. Certainly, he mentioned nothing about the actual pillars and definite places. It is unfortunate that Dr. Morrison met up with an exception. It is doubly unfortunate that his philosophical acumen had not dictated caution in deducting general conclusions from particular premises...
Cummings may indeed get a pure text but if the present volume is any indication it will not be "pure" in the Brattle Street sense. With his usual acumen, he has already ensured against that. For his recipe for poetry is apparently a dash if wit, a sprinkle of imagery, and a pinch of smut. The last condiment is easy to find despite his commendable ruse in transliterating into Greek certain English monosyllables which always arouse Mr. Dirty Mind, the true-born censor. There is a blank page, whose missing text appears only in the holograph edition, and the penny...