Word: distractive
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...anonymous scientist, who is a bachelor, had been living and working for weeks at a time on a remote island; no women were on hand to distract him. In these monastic circumstances, he soon noticed an intriguing phenomenon: his beard was growing less rapidly than normal. Furthermore, on the day before each of his periodic returns to the mainland and reunions with a receptive female (also unidentified), his facial hair began to sprout at a prodigious rate. The implications were staggering. Could the mere thought of sex stimulate a darker 5 o'clock shadow...
Both writers cite small acts of compassion by some of Charlie Company's G.I.s while the killing went on all around them. One soldier saw three children peek from some brush where they were hiding, motioned them to lie flat. Several G.I.s shouted to distract a soldier just as he was about to shoot an elderly woman. About the only heroic figure in the mad morning was Lieut. Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who marked spots where he saw wounded children and women so that ground troops could provide medical aid. He was astonished and furious when...
...disaster. Instead, the main rally was something of a letdown. So much passion had been expended during the preceding week, so much of the verbiage was repetitive, so much of the canned rally routine was familiar, that boredom and the hot sun (90° by midafternoon) were able to distract from the main business at hand. Some of the less inhibited youngsters stripped and went wading in the nearby Reflecting Pool...
Changing Reality. Some city fathers, in fact, have complained that the mural's visual movements are distracting for entertainers and lecturers. But Willi Kreiterling, director of the cultural center and instrumental in getting Agam the commission, insists that "Agam's murals no more distract than the elaborate decorations in a Baroque church." For his part, the 42-year-old Israeli artist pays tribute to the city's daring in accepting his first experiment with a "total environment," and he is proud that traditional ethnic bitterness was overcome. "The Germans were willing to meet my every technical exigency...
Wheelis interrupts his story a number of times with general discussions of personal inertia, freedom and will. Because these talks are jargon-free and meditative in tone, they do not distract from the fictional narrative. If anything, they heighten the reader's involvement in a story written with exceptional economy and tact...