Word: distressingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Immigrant parents, however insistent, are not always successful in excluding distracting American influences. Le Vinh's jet black hair is cut in a moderate punk style, and he sports fashionable, wide-shouldered jackets, to his father's distress. "He would have me in the preppie look," says Vinh with disdain. Retorts Le Giau: "When I went to school we wore uniforms." Imelda Ortiz finds herself in a tug-of-war with her mother over American teens' signature apparel: tight jeans. "My mom says I look like a Solid Gold dancer and makes me take them off," complains Imelda. "She looks...
Short of a bomb, indeed, experts were hard put to explain the disaster. Even if the pilot had lost all four engines simultaneously, aviation sources pointed out, he could have sent a distress signal and possibly continued to glide for 30 minutes. And even if his power source had been cut, he could have used a backup system. In addition, officials observed, sudden disappearances from radar and crashes at sea are very rare. Never before has a commercial jet crossing the Atlantic plunged into the ocean...
Walker worked for two years in the Norfolk branch of Wackenhut, a national firm providing industrial security services. While there he was sued for inflicting "emotional distress" by a wealthy Virginia Beach couple who claimed that Walker snooped around their home in varied disguises: as a birdwatcher wearing a green bag with eyeholes over his head and carrying a telescope; as a Boy Scout leader looking for a place to camp; as a Catholic priest. Next, Walker went into business for himself, digging up evidence in divorce cases and probing phony insurance claims. He also swept business offices for hidden...
...Sheridan's School for Scandal, the prologue clucks hypocritically about rumormongering: "Caus'd by a dearth of scandal, should the vapours/ Distress our fair ones -- let 'em read the papers." That advice is still being followed at supermarket check-out counters. In Jane Austen's Persuasion, a shut-in hears neighborhood news: "Call it gossip if you will; but when nurse Rooke has half an hour's leisure to bestow on me, she is sure to have something to relate that is entertaining and profitable, something that makes one know one's species better." What the invalid learns is that...
...defense accord upset some Canadians, who fear that it could involve their country in Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, the space-based antimissile defense system better known as Star Wars. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger added to Canadian distress when he suggested in a television interview that American missiles could be stationed in Canada...