Word: aptly
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...radio dialogue between the Soviet pilots. As one of the pilots closed in on the fated airliner, he is quoted as exclaiming, "Fiddlesticks!" Fiddlesticks? Despite the fact that the word went out of fashion before Yuri Andropov could even have heard of Glenn Miller, it is a remarkably apt translation of the Russian. What the pilot said was "Yolki palki," an exceedingly mild oath that translates literally as "the sticks of a fir tree," and is the exclamatory equivalent of "Yipes!" on a preteen U.S. playground...
...released poll, Lou Harris finds that Central America is proving a "disaster" for Reagan, undoing the confidence that an improving economy has given him, and reviving the old specter that he is apt to get us into war. Faced with rising criticism, Reagan blames the press for its "hype and hoopla," moving New York Times Columnist James Reston to observe, "On these two subjects you have to pay attention, for he's an expert on both." The President's own pollster, Richard B. Wirthlin, samples opinions frequently to give Reagan a measure of American attitudes apart from what...
Studies show that women are more apt to be child abusers than men. The reason is obvious: they usually spend more time with the children and thus are provoked to a greater degree. With single mothers, the stress of child rearing is often aggravated by reduced economic circumstances and the lack of a supporting adult to share parental burdens. The unwanted, the unusually brilliant or retarded, and the physically handicapped children tend to be often abused...
Studies and statistics offer a rough picture of a "typical" rapist. He is young, most likely between the ages of 15 and 19. He is apt to strike in summer rather than in winter, at night rather than by day, and half the time he rapes the victim in her home. He is usually poor and, like three-quarters of all rapists, he was sexually abused as a child. But experts say the statistics are too sketchy to categorize rapists; the exceptions spill across all social classes. Says Judy Ravitz, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against...
Even more than most readers, businessmen are apt to complain about stories written about them. Considering the press's "spotty record" for fairness and accuracy, New England Business magazine lamented in a recent editorial that "somewhere in the deep past, the journalistic trade decided that it was unprofessional" to show an article in advance to its principal source. Founded in 1952, New England Business (circ. 45,000) is now proudly violating that rule, though " sometimes this leads to difficult conversations." It finds businessmen grateful, but the practice is not a total guarantee of accuracy: "One company reviewed a complete...