Word: boob
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...criticized, it must be criticized intelligently--that is selectively. To the person being attacked the least exaggeration or misstatement obviates the entire argument. When someone like McCarthy talks about "such atom spies as Fuchs, Pontecorvo, and Oppenheimer," we not only classify McCarthy as a liar or boob for so libeling Oppenheimer, but tend to forge that the other two really were atom spies. Similarly, the grouping of "such Mississippi stalwarts as Bibo, Rankin, and Fielding Wright" makes the average Southerner think that not only is all Northern criticism without basis in fact, but that Bilbo and Rankin were...
...often verges on caricature. Obviously ashamed of his people's long allegiance to Mussolini, Author Monelli does his best to de-Caesarize Italy's 20th century Caesar. In destroying the legend of Mussolini as hero, he occasionally seems to build up another legend of Mussolini as utter boob. But with that qualification in mind, Mussolini can be enjoyed as a highly readable biography...
...most comical character on the U.S. scene was the hale & hearty joiner who slapped his fellow businessmen on the back at service-club luncheons and addressed total strangers as "Tom," "Dick" or "Harry." Sinclair Lewis called him "Babbitt," H. L. Mencken called him "boob," and many another writer dismissed him simply as "a Rotarian...
...worldly little circle of summer friends taking their cues and comforts from well-heeled Sam and Sara Dunn, Sam's cousin Peter Cowley is a bit of a boob, but useful. Peter's job is to tame and tutor the circle's mischievous parcel of small fry in an impromptu summer school; his joy is to roam off into the woods alone munching an apple and chewing on the word of God. On one such solitary jaunt, he sees a vision, not God but a proof "that there is God, and that we matter...
...American husband can expect to be looked on as nothing more than a branch of the Chase National Bank . . . Other than this, he is considered totally useless-a big boob, to be pushed around unmercifully . . . And yet . . . the men go right ahead and put their head in a noose...