Word: cryptically
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...morning last week when the staid London Times turned up at breakfast with these cryptic numerals above a report of the previous day's debate in Parliament, every good Londoner got the allusion. Britain's bungling, War-born Ministry of Information was still being lambasted in the House of Commons. And the Times head was a plea for help from baffled editors whose effort to get news from the front had been balked by official red tape...
Bible of all astrologers is the French prophet Nostradamus, who died in 1566, leaving behind him a book of cryptic verses supposedly predicting (among other great events) the rise of Oliver Cromwell, the Great Fire of London in 1666, the revolt of Britain's American colonies. Nostradamus wrote: "The Chief of Fossan will have his throat cut. . . ." Said Columnist Walker's Astrologer: "Transpose fossan and you get OSSANF, the initials of Hitler's title, Oberster Sturm-Scharen-Anführer...
Even more disturbing than the lack of censors was the virtual absence of any news whatever from the Allied fronts. Reporters, barred for the present from the scene of war itself (though a limited number are expected to go later), were dependent on brief and cryptic official communiques. Europe had some 10,000 newspapermen covering the war (including A. P.'s 664,* U. P.'s 500, something like 7,750 men employed by foreign agencies) and most of them had nothing to report. Result was that they picked up rumors where they could. All week long...
...riots in Bratislava increased in violence (six were reported killed and 50 hurt by bomb explosions), a cryptic message came from Berlin: "The Slovak problem is already solved." Solution: "Independent" Slovakia with Dr. Tiso as president...
Alan G. Slocombe '42, author of the cryptic "biting over the telephone" phrase, pooh-poohed the idea that Miss Arnold had been frightened. "I growled at her and I guess she was just being coy," he claimed...