Word: dimout
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Happy New Year" greetings last week. Their New Year mood, conditioned by Rundstedt's drive and the prolongation of the five-year-old war, was caught by the relentless national jester Nat Gubbins (London Sunday Express): "By looking through the bottom of an upturned glass in a dimout [one can foresee that] the war, of course, will continue almost indefinitely, and as the people get more & more fed up with it the Government will lose its temper and impose stricter measures for keeping noses to the grindstone...
...Bitter 'Arf. Official fanfare seemed to have convinced Londoners that the lights would really go up in Piccadilly. But the dimout proved only a flicker less black than the blackout. In a bit of nonsense that was also an exasperated travesty on Government rules, regulation and confusion, the Daily Express' "Beachcomber" (J. B. Morton) said what most Londoners thought. He wrote: "The Strabismus plan for a half-dim (partial) blackout is now completed and may soon come into operation. The idea is to black out partially half of every window but only with a mild form of blackout...
...week's end robombs, launched probably from aircraft, again began falling on London. Londoners, who had cautiously raised their blackout curtains for the first time in five years, promptly lowered them again. On dimout night (Sept. 17) the city continued to look like the inside of an inkwell. As long as the bombs kept coming, London would stay sensibly dark...
...With the dimout lifted, the multicolored floodlights again played softly over the waving palm fronds. It was like old times...
...lights went on again-within reason-all over the U.S. After 14 to 18 months of dimout, cities along the East, West and Gulf Coasts were told to relax and light up-but not too much. Chief reservations: 1) Washington suggested that a "brownout" (midway between total darkness and every movie marquee ablaze) would help save electricity and fuel; 2) Army & Navy men warned that if enemy submarines should crop up in force again off U.S. coasts, out the lights must go; 3) OCD officials promised that there would still be an occasional air-raid drill...