Word: argot
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...underworld that lies behind the lovely façade of Paris, a new population has moved in on the oldtime apache. In the argot they are les Bicots, but respectable Parisians call them les Algériens. After 1946, when the people of Algeria were granted full French citizenship, they began pouring into France at the rate of 30,000 a year. Arriving in Paris on the slow trains from the Midi, they drift with their bundles into the old, revolutionary districts of Belleville and Ménilmontant, where whole blocks now have the sound and smell of Algerian medinas...
Immersed in the jazzy, sometimes obscene argot of the addicts and spiced with lurid episodes, Flee the Angry Strangers packs documentary punch but lacks point. Diane and her friends may need analysis; they need spunk and a spanking more...
...taking the "Courtin' Time" seriously. At any rate, he does the best job with his part, which is, of course, the best in the show. He kicks and tosses the hand props around, slides down ropes, and does gymnastics. Once or twice he even lapses into his movie-gangster argot. Some of the better supporting performances are handled by Billie Worth, Effle Afton, and Katherine Anderson...
...gives the story a lift. One of Gwenn's friendly neighbors, U.N. Translator Dorothy McGuire, inadvertently receives and passes some of the queer, thus catches the eye of T-man Burt Lancaster. Eager to prolong his attentions, she reads up on counterfeiting and begins spouting counterfeiter's argot. This maneuver sets up a clever scene in which Lancaster gives her a whispered grilling at a nightclub table while wandering violinists serenade them with romantic mood music. The romance also serves the script's ironic purpose of bringing the Secret Service man innocently into the counterfeiter...
...make dull reading today, but Orwell's has a mint freshness because his poverty, his sorry work mates, even the brain-deadening duties of his distasteful job were of vast interest to him. When the scene shifts to England, he is just as intently curious about flophouses, tramp argot and the personal histories of his down-and-out pals. There is the concern for the underdog and the compassion without sentimentality that soon became Orwell trademarks...