Word: banter
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Died. Jack Osterman, 37, famed ad-libbing, ad-bibbing comedian, called "The Banter King of Broadway"; of pneumonia; in Atlantic City. Once accosted by a Broadway trull with the traditional: "What are you doing tonight, honey?" cat-witted Osterman sighed: "I'm making a Gaumont film. Thank God somebody asked...
...opposite pole from timid Freshmen are scornful upperclassmen who are "too busy" for a chat, or who refuse to go through "all that red tape." This is nonsense, or at least an exaggeration. Deans are busy men with little time for idle gossip or banter, but they are certainly far from aloof. Rumor to the contrary, a puzzled or worried student can still obtain an appointment quite as readily and quickly at University Hall as he could with any active business or professional man. Few persons would choose to sit in their rooms and worry about an exam when adequate...
Handsome, reticent, unexcitable, Coach Ulbrickson never reprimands his men; they learn their faults from his good-natured, critical banter. He rarely smokes, never drinks, forbids swearing during crew practice. He methodically records the conditions, time and distance of each day's rowing. To avoid overtraining he ceases coaching a week before the major races. His favorite starting-line goad: "It doesn't mean anything to think you're good-go out and prove it." Upon seeing Washington complete a second sweep at Poughkeepsie last week, Rusty Callow, seated nearby on the observation train, grabbed Al Ulbrickson...
...advantage of cracking an early jest to distract his victims from the impending thumbscrew of his Budget revelations. Last year he said: "Perhaps I may liken this budget to the uncertain glories of an April Day." This year if he had drawn on the calendar for his opening banter he would have had to choose the month of November, so he changed his tack, orated: "It has been suggested that I tax bachelors, bicycles, cats, dogs, debutantes, fiction, loudspeakers and other things. . . . None of these things is of any use to me." His audience tittered nervously, and shrewd Neville Chamberlain...
...believe that his good wife is a prostitute. Nils kills himself and his wife (off stage) and Andy loses his job and goes crazy. There are times when this flimsy tale comes to a dead stop and the workmen loll about on their crags ex changing rowdy talk and banter, much like the urchins of Dead End grown older and transported 63 floors up. "What's the purtiest thing in the world?" asks Andy...