Word: backward
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...airliner crashes in the first paragraph of a novel. The author, who, of course, has decreed the time and place of the crash as well as the passenger list, has a number of choices. Does he thread backward, exploring the chilly ironies of Fate's dice rolling? Forward, tracing a bizarre linkage of events unexpectedly tumbled into motion? Does he find sabotage, corporate greed, a pilot who memorized an eye chart he could no longer read...
...that case, the essay would not have ended. Nor is the purpose of the end to simply stop--a red light is not the equivalent of an ending. Rather, a conclusion is a sort of contented wrapping of the package, a happy ending, a period. A conclusion works backward, restating the points of the argument in reverse. Then the conclusion, not smugly but always with confidence, states--not suggests--that its thesis has been vindicated by the argument contained therein...
...Tanks and uniformed teens with guns were once more out on the streets of Phnom Penh, the capital, and the government was back in the business of executing its enemies. Tourists and foreign businessmen fled any way they could. After four years of faltering promise, Cambodia took a large backward step, and Phnom Penh had a whiff of Saigon in 1975, as timorous Cambodians approached foreigners with the plea: "Can you help...
...since Mirage casino mogul Steve Wynn said he would build a Las Vegas-style extravaganza a mile from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City's Marina district. The women do have Donald Trump--that renowned champion of the little guy--on their team. How could so many politicians bend over backward to please an out-of-town money changer? asks the man who would be in direct competition with Wynn. Oh, the hypocrisy! But even Donald has been trumped. Seven of the 10 homeowners on Bryant Drive have said yes to Wynn's buyout offer, because either they liked the terms...
Exploitation films come in all genres, but the staple was sex. Kroger Babb, who billed himself as "Mr. Pihsnamwohs" (showmanship spelled backward), ballyhooed his 1944 birth-of-a-baby film, Mom and Dad, so successfully that it ran for decades and, according to the Grindhouse authors, earned $100 million. And in the late '50s, as bold European films lured the art-house crowds, a new breed of grind gurus revived sexploitation...