Word: devilishness
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...also a disappointment. For Miss Howe, a ranking monologuist, brings into fiction both the virtues and the faults of her art. She has a fine ear for the devilish ironies and self-betrayals of normal speech (or writing), and her whole book is nervous and vivid with them. But she has also the monologuist's weakness for overemphasis, for sacrificing psychological integrity in favor of a laugh or a sniff. Even so, The Whole Heart is an impressive, realistic piece of work...
Booby traps are the most frequently used anti-personnel mines, and no more devilish contraption has been found since gunpowder was invented. Nazis and Japanese are equally adept at using booby traps to blow to shreds unsuspecting men who pick up letters, light fires in stoves, turn doorknobs in onetime enemy territory, or pick up dead soldiers to bury them...
...about a foot high. They wear soft, pointed suede shoes (occasionally spats), tight green breeches, red jackets with a ruffle at the neck and stocking caps or flat-topped tricorn hats with a jaunty feather. They behave fairly well when pilots are flying their planes properly, but become devilish when the plane is not handled to suit them. Sometimes, being creatures of mood and humor, they make life miserable for both bad and good pilots...
...rushlights, make candles from mutton fat. Fisherfolk in the western islands are catching shark for oil to light homemade lamps. This spring the wheat shortage threatened a bread famine by midsummer, but a 7,000-ton shipment from Canada brought some relief. Worse still, there's devilish little tea-and all for a war the Government will hardly admit exists. Only bright spot in the deepening gloom: you can always blame the British...
However, it is not that the Smith bill is a completely devilish or undemocratic device to hamstring labor that we take our stand against it. The requirement of the secret ballot in strike votes, the provisions for voluntary arbitration in the event the mediation board fails, and the registration of financial statements should prove healthy measures, and taken by themselves would speed the advance of labor unions toward the democratic organization that is their goal...