Word: defeating
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...regain his selfesteem, the loser typically reduces his anguish by explaining away his defeat. Show business's fallen stars often justify their decline in terms of a mysterious force known as The Breaks (another word for fate). Other losers absorb defeat by joining a less competitive game, such as local community activism, which gives them a new chance to emerge as winners...
Reticence in Defeat...
...catalogue of loser statements, whose authors can be ranked according to the sportsmanship code and assigned appropriate moral victories. Even so, the loser himself well knows that he remains a loser; only by heroic mental gyrations can the also-ran restage the race in his favor. Obviously, triumph and defeat are defined by society rather than the individual. If a Ted Williams bats .400, for instance, the grandstand regards a .300 batter as a loser?and so does...
...loser statements, in fact, are probably rationalizations, from the game tears showing through Adlai Stevenson's remarks after he lost the 1952 presidential race (see box) to the naked bitterness of Richard Nixon in 1962, when it seemed that his defeat for the California governorship marked the end of his public life. In politics as well as business, the most common rationalization is that the loser has refused to pay a "price" for winning. Henry Clay, who spent 20 years trying to occupy the White House, finally produced that famous sour grape: "I would rather be right than President...
...secret and take defeat...