Word: aleckism
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...sound like an acceptance, the rebel reply amounted to a rejection of De Gaulle's terms-which specified that the negotiations be confined to arrangements for a ceasefire, and should not include discussion of Algeria's political future. But what gave the rebel announcement an unmistakably smart-aleck flavor was that all five of the proposed rebel representatives have been in French prisons for more than three years; four of them, including Ben Bella himself, landed there in a celebrated coup in October 1956, when a Moroccan plane carrying them from Rabat to Tunis was diverted...
...their old man's talent. They also had a fierce urge to prove that they could make it on their own. So Bing Crosby's four sons-Gary, 26, twins Dennis and Phil, 25, and Lindsay, 21-put together a family-style act of songs and smart-aleck chatter and started right at the top of the nightclub circuit. The Crosby boys blew into Las Vegas' Sahara nightclub last month, after three successful weeks at Chicago's Chez Paree, on the greatest burst of friendly publicity they have known since they started collecting drunken-driving citations...
...stagewise technique-of a veteran. The voice she displayed was not yet a big one, but it had a smooth, satiny quality ideally suited to the menacing, feline tension of her carefully calculated movements. Her opening-night performance was received with warm applause and scattered smart-aleck brays of "Little, go home!" By the second performance, she had her audience cheering after both her big first-act arias. Concluded one influential critic: "The debut came perhaps a bit too early, but it might well be the beginning of a great stage career...
...that anachronistic imp," he smiled, giving me the same amused look he'd accorded the mention of Billy Graham. "Superficial, smart-aleck, shallow. And outdated. Agnostics are eighteenth century...
THREE or four years ago. the arrival of Richard Nixon in the White House would have seemed a dreadful prospect. He seemed an unprincipled smart aleck. a witch-hunting demagogue, and so ambitious that no price seemed too high for a chance at the presidency...