Word: bootlessly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...designers write them." David Eggers, the 20-something founder and publisher of "McSweeney's" introduces his latest creation in a telling mixture of anachronism and irony: "People, people stop blaming yourselves! Have you forgotten: Timothy McSweeney's Blues/Jazz Odyssey? (For short say 'McSweeney' s') Known also as: `Pollyanna's Bootless Errand. Now fix your collar--Today could be your...
Speer is a longer book than it should be. Protracted quotes from Sereny's interviews, while fascinating in their own right, lead to a wobbly, repetitive narrative that often lurches down bootless byways. A meeting with a Swedish diplomat, for example, provides Sereny with the excuse for a four-page diversion on Kurt Gerstein, the conscience-stricken SS lieutenant who tried to tell the world about death-camp gassings he had witnessed. Gerstein's saga has been told better elsewhere...
Novelists occasionally tease readers, creditors, old lovers and future biographers by using their own name for invented characters. Generally such characters are charming rogues. This leads to bootless speculation along the lines of "Lordy, is he really that charming?" and "My word, did he really do all that crazy stuff?" A good rule is to ignore the confessional tease and assume that if it's called a novel on the title page, it's fiction...
Cambridge Slurpy is dangerous stuff, since its opaqueness makes it impossible to judge its depth. In plotting our footfalls, we are left to rely on our intimate knowledge of the complex topography of Cambridge sidewalks. Since the disappointed faces of those whose bootless feet a momentary miscalculation has left sloppily soaked is a common sight, we may deduce that such knowledge is rarely perfect. Tip O'Neill (the man we have to thank for our undulating brick walkways) must be laughing from his grave...
...nonbeliever, all such speculation is bootless. If God does not exist, there is no First Coming, much less a Second, and the end of the world is a - concept without meaning. Many mainstream Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians argue that millenarians like Walvoord and Dyer misuse scriptural prophecies about the final days. These are not detail-specific guides to beating some kind of celestial point spread but timeless alerts that humanity must be constantly vigilant against sin's allure. The temptation to seek clues to the Second Coming on CNN is easy to understand, since Saddam has proclaimed himself...