Word: blarney
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Died. Sir George Oliver Colthurst, 68, owner of Blarney Castle and its famed Blarney Stone; of heart disease; in Blarney, County Cork, Ireland. Scholars are uncertain whether the Stone's ability to impart eloquent persuasiveness to all who kiss it began as a folk legend or a pressagent's idea. Whatever its source, the story spread until it gave a word to the language, a handsome yearly revenue to the castle's owners. Likeliest story: legend was inspired by Cormach McDermod Carthy, an early iyth Century occupant of the castle, for his verbal skill at harassing Queen...
Flipping through the blurbs and blarney of Its trade press one day last week, Hollywood stopped to goggle at a full-page ad. Blazoned as an open letter "to the top executives of the motion picture industry," the ad said...
...clothes, rushed an Estonian mother to a maternity ward just in time (twins), and browbeat the government into giving the refugees an unused army camp for their stay. Cork's taxi drivers even sacrificed good fares to take the penniless voyagers by the carload up to kiss the Blarney Stone...
...story is a rickety yarn about the disappearance of the Blarney stone from Blarney Castle, and how a U.S. insurance investigator (Bing) helps the local police sergeant (Barry) to catch the thief. The crime, of course, gets far less footage than Crosby's crooning and a romance between Bing and the sergeant's sloe-eyed daughter (Ann Blyth...
...Defense Lawyer Stryker may command big fees, but his reputation was not enhanced by all of the blarney which the majority of the jury so easily sensed. Federal Prosecutor Tom Murphy, who draws a small salary for hard work well done, had it over Stryker "like a tent." His summation was a gem of logical courtroom oratory. By the way ... if Tom had needed help in his argument, he could have called on his brother (none other than "Fireman" Murphy, ex-Yankee pitcher) to quench Stryker's pyrotechnic palaver...