Word: chaff
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...threshing is done by ancient methods. Oxen pull sleds, equipped with sharp flint points, around & around in the harvested wheat stocks, cutting them apart. Then the peasant and his family toss the grain into the air, allowing the wind, as it has for centuries, to separate wheat from chaff. (Sometimes there is the incongruity of a flint sled being pulled around by a bright, red, new, ECA tractor...
Despite the Iron Curtain and the familiar Soviet passion for secrecy in its affairs, a good deal of news can be gotten out of Russia. But it takes digging. That is why TIME has a "Russian Desk," whose three members spend their time winnowing facts from the Russian chaff. Last week's Background For War story in TIME on Russia's war potential was a good example of the nature of their work...
...Sample from a recent select-the-best phrase question: "In trying to renew old recollections, we cannot unfold the whole web of our existence; we must 1) winnow the wheat from the chaff, 2) pick out the single threads, 3) scrap the flotsam and jetsam, 4) isolate the relevant factors, 5) distinguish between the warp and the woof." Students who ticked off No. 2 got it right...
...sixth of February these essay answers must be pondered, the wheat sifted from the chaff, and the grades deposited at University Hall. This schedule means a furious 72 hours for instructors and graders in the "Monday...at 9" courses. And it may mean that bluebooks will of necessity receive a little less care and solicitude than they deserve and normally receive...
...warmed with hot air for hours before flight. Operation Haylift flew over rugged mountains which pilots nicknamed "Lower Slobbovia." To get feed close to the animals, the planes flew low (from 150 to 200 ft.) while airmen, muffled and goggled, toiled in a storm of freezing wind and flying chaff to kick bales out of open doors...