Word: almost
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Shriners' annual conventions are one noisy manifestation of a quiet and widespread U.S. phenomenon. Fraternal societies, which dwindled during the depression and war, have flourished anew. This year they occupy a good deal of the leisure time of almost a quarter of the country's adult population...
...admitting in his proud CataIan way that he had been converted. When word of this reached the villagers, converts flocked in by the score. The name of Garry Davis began to creep into almost every conversation about the price of grapes and apricots. The mayor dreamed up the idea of declaring Trouillas to be world territory, and sprang it on the council one day when seven of 13 councilors were present. The seven were a quorum, and every one was in favor...
...Kansas, farmers reported freakish results. Wheat had fizzled out where early prospects looked promising, had produced well in areas written off as no good. Yield ran from as low as 2 bushels an acre up to 40. The Kansas crop was almost a complete reversal of last year's "miracle wheat," where stunted, scraggly stems had borne unexpectedly huge heads, and the state's estimated 160-million-bushel harvest had turned into 231 million bushels. This year's 251-million-bushel estimate may turn out to be as much as 75 million bushels too high...
...their best, Lloyd's gags have the simplicity and spontaneity of growing grass. They emerge almost imperceptibly from next to nothing and a moment later become a blooming hayfield of blundering frustrations. At their wildest they have the towering improbability of Jack's beanstalk. His props are the natural pitfalls of daily life. His situations spring from the normal embarrassments of a small-town boy, abnormally innocent and awkward, but gifted with a brash, penultimate courage which always brings...
Wilson," he has instead hidden his light under a bale of mistresses and drowned his talent in gallons of Canadian Club. Through almost the whole of this novel, Hero Baxter is at odds with himself, is in constant danger of being unable to keep his seat on a barstool, or is busy escaping the hot clutches of girl friends and trollops. Through it all, Baxter permits the reader to share his every picayune thought and gesture, e.g., "He dropped the match. It fell-thhhh-into the cuspidor...