Word: causticity
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Prima Donna: The word has, in the mouths of the more thinking members of the musical public, taken on a half-humorous, half-caustic meaning . . . (The child who in an examination paper misspelt the term Prim Madonna was very young...
Music could mellow the caustic Mencken strain. He once moved Angoff by saying, "Schubert knew God, he knew that God, too, was afraid, that God, too, trembled and was in doubt and got angry and regretted and yearned in vain, like you and me and all of us." Though he spouted misogynisms, Mencken was deeply in love with his wife, Sara Haardt, who lived only five years after their 1930 marriage. When she was dying he told a friend, "Women are always waiting . . . women are always waiting for-birth, for kisses, for love, for growing-up, for smiles, for death...
...auction-block separations in mind amended the words in slave weddings to "till death or distance do you part." Women slaves were often prey to the master's amatory whims. Some historians hold that even the great Jefferson fathered mulatto offspring and he was twitted for it in caustic verse...
With his new suggestions for NATO strategy last week, Secretary of State Dulles showed that the Administration feels compelled to alter its foreign policy in the face of caustic foreign and domestic criticism. The new twist, although laudable passes only as a beginning and cannot be interpreted as a major revision of policy. The altered attitude should be extended, enlarged, and made a permanent part of United States foreign outlook...
...other hand, is somewhat caustic on the subject, and observed, "a university that does not exist for teaching has lost direction." Bok has worked to interest students in the field, giving this year the new Natural Sciences 7, and starting the series of concentrators' dinners, in which undergraduates meet with Faculty members and guests about every three weeks to discuss various special subjects in astronomy...