Word: customs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...find that both your neighbors are deep in conversation but not with you." All that John can do is "make the best of a bad job, be careful not to fall into a vacant stare and take the first opportunity of getting back into the talk." If the British custom of retiring after dinner is not observed in Mauretania, John Bull is encouraged to show firmness: "If Mr. Bull wishes to leave the drawing room, he must simply stroll from the room . . . and ask a servant to direct him to the cloak room...
...leaned on the fact that his father once represented the riding. Nevertheless, the election threw an unaccustomed scare into the Liberals. The Tories felt nothing but joy. When Leader George Drew entered Parliament the night of the election, party colleagues gave him a loud cheer and, following time-honored custom, threw copies of Hansard (equivalent to the Congressional Record) across the House...
...earn his $2,520 a year, Chaplain Harris must turn up at each meeting of the Senate; custom dictates a different prayer each day. In olden days the Senate asked less of its chaplain: only legislative days were opened with prayer. But in 1939 the Senators decided that they should make a plea for divine guidance every time they met. Dr. Harris does not let his duties on Capitol Hill interfere with his regular work at Foundry Methodist Church, where next fall he will celebrate his 25th anniversary as pastor...
...custom found its way to England, where the versatile William Shakespeare saw fit to burlesque it. From the lips of the mad Ophelia in Hamlet, Act IV, Scene v, comes probably both the funniest and most ribald Valentine messaged over cooed...
...Shanghai, in 1921, he attended the foundation meeting of China's Communist Party. Although he was impatient with friends who talked about girls or other nonrevolutionary matters, he fell in love. According to old custom, his parents had married him to a village girl when he was 14. He discarded the girl back home, with whom he had never lived, and married Yang K'ai-hui, a professor's daughter and an active Communist. Friends celebrated their marriage as an "ideal romance." She bore him two sons, both of whom were educated in Moscow. Yang was executed...