Word: bum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...audience was in for a treat. The last time the two were supposed to meet, at a semifinal match at Indian Wells, Calif., Venus pulled out at the last minute with a bum knee. And at the 2000 Wimbledon semifinal, their play was sloppy and uninspired, with Venus slumping toward a victory. But this time, Serena, 19--the more powerful but less disciplined player--turned it on at the beginning. Venus, 21 and still the more well-rounded, controlled strategist, broke her sister's serve in the fifth game of the first set. Serena's face, already locked stiff, became...
...tell him if a plane's transponder is out. A controller will then ask the pilot to turn the transponder back on (which is done by simply turning what looks like a radio dial on the plane's 'dashboard'), or asking if the plane has a second unit. "Bum transponders are no big deal," says one controller. "I wouldn't have been alarmed." That might have lasted a few minutes, as the controllers likely tried repeatedly to raise the planes. When they got no response, the controllers would have flagged their supervisors, who are usually pacing just behind them, looking...
...what you do. People ask, "What line of work did you say you're in?" and if you say, "I am a brain surgeon" to someone who washes dishes professionally, he backs up, bowing. But a man who spends five weeks lounging in his pajamas is a plain old bum like the ones at the bus depot. There are not varieties of bumhood, some more creative or distinguished than others. Indolence is, like all religious experiences, totally self-effacing...
...Billy Bob Thornton), the barber of Santa Rosa, in Joel and Ethan Coen's tragicomic cardiograph The Man Who Wasn't There. He's got a cheating wife (Frances McDormand), a conniving friend (James Gandolfini), a dead-end job and the depressive sense that "life has dealt me some bum cards. Or maybe I didn't play them right." But the Coens do. They lay out their story in pearly, sepulchral black-and-white, infuse the dialogue with mordant wit and somehow blend those two postwar innovations, UFO mania and dry cleaning...
...they the most overindulged brats in history or the victims of a bum rap? Many of the young people who responded to our story felt they had been unfairly dissed. "How can parents blame us for being spoiled, when pop culture and advertising--created by adults--have targeted us as a market?" asked a Colorado teen. "You slapped negative labels on our entire generation," complained a Californian. "None of my friends got a Mercedes for their 16th birthday. What we do have are the problems that the President is leaving for the future." A Wisconsin high-schooler was more upbeat...