Word: adroitness
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Then, the Belgians had their turn. Many of them expressed the view that by "adroit denials" the British nurse might have escaped death at the hands of the Germans. It was a pretty thing to strike an "I-would-not-tell-a-lie" attitude and die for it, these Belgians remarked, and went on to say that her "noble stand for principle" was less appreciated by the Belgian parents of children who were afterward the victims of her "remarkable honesty," and that many of her accomplices would have escaped had she been willing to tell...
Translations. "What did choose mean?" people asked. Reliable Vermonters were found who said it was a cautious colloquialism for "want." Funnyman Will Rogers and others declared it as foxy a word as an adroit politician ever selected. Columnist Heywood Broun thought it had "magnificent swank." Senator Bruce of Maryland, with Democratic irony, quoted Macbeth: "If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown...
...cleanliness. It is not extraordinary that our land of prohibitions both legal and moral, provides tantalizing stimulus for any sensitive observer, be he yokel or diplomat, foreigner or native wit. In this portion of the book alone does the author play the game he has chosen for though fairry adroit satire pinch-hits for the more rugged sincerity which any critical work presupposes he nevertheless concludes his observations in more commendable fashion than he approached his unfamiliar subject...
...highest office in the land, certain to have as fine a funeral as that enjoyed by a great rascal to whose pompous obituaries he had once listened in dismay? What if this story were written by a calm, an almost lugubrious satirist, without any ranting; by a master of adroit prose? Might people not exclaim about such a book...
...Willie Baxter, twice Seventeen. Or you can regard The Plutocrat as simply a new Tarkington vehicle full of up-to-date types, sent out parading to show people how they look. The balloon tires of burlesque protect anyone it runs over from being injured. Mme. Momoro is the chauffeuse, adroit aloof, intelligent, guiding the satire until it is time for her to step out of it a human being like the rest. Mr. Tarkington has written books of more uniform merit but never one with more admirable and colorful combinations of his prime characteristic, good humor, with his serious...