Word: cretin
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...schemes for indemnity avoidance, the rich American heroine is drawing close to the embrace of the almost equally plutocratic hero, polo-playing Mark Van Stratton. The highest quality of Author Oppenheim's work lies in the universality of its appeal?this one would be highly acceptable to a semi-cretin or a college professor. It is hardly ambiguous to say that Author Oppenheim has produced, without writing a work of literature, the best 101 novels by a single author in the English or any other language...
...From the noun cretin, meaning idiot or village fool. A cretin is a creature of nightmare, humanity's most loathsome being. The word, even in adjectival form, is seldom used jocularly by people of discrimination, since one is seldom called upon to refer with jocularity to the most abject embodiment of mankind on earth...
Currently, Dr. Berman's book is received with more intelligence. Publicists, parents and practitioners have been educated, in their respective planes of understanding, to look upon endocrinology as important, intimate, significant. When Dr. Berman describes the cretin, his hideous characteristics and precarious destiny, he is now sure of an attentive audience. When he elucidates the cures that have been wrought upon the cretin, he is now certain that society appreciates while applauding, and that medicos share his enthusiasm as well...
...origin of cretin is traced by some to the French chrétien, meaning "Christian," hence "innocent." The Latin Christianus, again, was probably a translation of the older cretin, from crete (craie), a. chalky fuller's earth found in Crete, used by the Romans for coloring the face, especially by actors. A common mark of cretinism is a sallow, yellow earthy complexion...
...Shakespearean mask and the sublimity of the poet; the greatness of Queen Elizabeth and the pretentiousness of her virginity; the grace of Charles the Martyr and his unending folly; the greasy corpulence of Gautier and the perfection of his verse; the divine murmur of Verlaine and the cretin's mentality...