Word: askew
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...picturesque Japanese island of Ikitsuki, where the ways of farmers and fishermen die hard, two old men squat before a home altar and chant prayers carefully entrusted to them by their ancestors. The ritual is intense and moving. But something is askew. The rite is partly Buddhist, partly Christian. The language sounds odd, a sort of pidgin Latin. And what do the ancient prayers mean? One of the worshipers admits, "I don't understand a word of this...
...with a fork." In the lull that follows, Bridget Dunham chews meditatively on her water goblet, picks her teeth, then dives under the table after her napkin. Garo Tokat loses a battle with his artichoke, which rockets off the plate and onto his lap. Tiffany Field, her ivory dress askew, is so absorbed in her food that her long blond tresses marinate in the vinaigrette...
...very notion of such legislation, says University of Southern California Law Professor Leonard Ratner, implies that "Congress could by statute profoundly alter the structure of American Government." If the bills were actually enacted, the traditional balance of power between the three branches of U.S. Government would be put thoroughly askew. The Supreme Court would be supreme no more. The "supremacy clause" of the Constitution, declaring that document to be the prevalent law of the land, would become a "nullity," in the word used by Tampa Lawyer Edward Cutler, who is lobbying against the New Right proposals for the American...
...Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip, he discovered last week that U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt plans to open Davenport's beloved Matagorda Island Wildlife Refuge in Texas to developers. "Watt can't do that!" fumes the courtly Davenport, his straw boater slightly askew. "It's outrageous and unconscionable!" So furious is he that, "as secretary of the Maryland Audubon Society, I'm seriously thinking of demanding Watt's resignation in our next newsletter...
...typecast for the role of European professor: hair askew, glasses perched precariously on nose, rumpled suit flecked with bits of tobacco from an omnipresent pipe. At the University of Basel, where he taught for 27 years, students adored him. But amiable Karl Barth was anything but indulgent when he talked of man's relationship with...