Word: banter
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...students had seen him exchanging banter with his friends, or mingling on familiar terms with country people, fishermen and farmers, they would have thought him less formidable. And what they took for irascibility was often only a pedagogical technique. He was impatient with laziness, carelessness, or discourtesy, and rebuked them unsparingly when occasion demanded. He was strict also with innocent minor disturbances like coughing or late arrival at class. But far from losing his temper over these things, he had himself very well in hand...
Sanderson, a British zoologist who putters about the tropics studying small animals, writes this, his fourth book, with an air of cheery teatime banter which yet smells of good, scientific formaldehyde. It ranks him with such literate naturalists as Henry Walter Bates (The Naturalist on the Amazon), Thomas Belt (Naturalist in Nicaragua), William Beebe (Jungle Peace...
Battling over battleships and sweating over statistics today is the Senate Naval Affairs Committee in Washington. Whatever else the bicker and banter proves, it is apparent that the ancient American dream of a-navy-second-to-none is to be given dollars-and-cents substance. Justification for the proposed huge naval expenditures is the straw-man of German and Japanese aggression...
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...