Word: dourness
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...look like a Napoleonic commander, performing a miracle of military endurance. He was only a plain, lanky, thin-lipped American, with a weather-beaten face, a dour smile, a sunburned neck: he might have been a hunter in the backwoods of his native Florida. But like the plain, lanky Americans who hacked the nation out of the wilderness, "Vinegar Joe" had created an epic-out of sweat and weariness and malaria, of retreat and desperation and endurance. And last week what he was doing for China (see p. 37) was worth all the noble and encouraging talk in the world...
...debacle in Greece. From the present's point of view, Laval looks untrustworthy from the start. Irony stalks beside Winston Churchill and Admiral Darlan as they review French sailors together. The tread of marching armies forecasts the kind of fight they will make later on-the Germans, thudding, dour, professional; the Russians, massive, resolute, rough; the Italians, light, out-of-step, a little too gay, a little silly...
...Dour, white-haired old Allen Towner Treadway has represented Massachusetts' First District in Congress for 29 of his 74 years. Banker, insurance-company director, hotel owner, Treadway has been an able peacetime servant of his constituents, has well served the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers as an unofficial watchdog on tax legislation. His knowledge of tax matters is profound and broad...
Lord MacMillan was dull. Sir John Reith was dour. Alfred Duff Cooper was social. Then into the British Ministry of Information came red-haired Brendan Bracken, young (41), quick-witted protege of Winston Churchill...
...worked ten years on the New York Times as reporter and editorial writer. He quit to freelance, wrote popular fiction. Scholarly in tone and appearance, he is no pedant. When the Saturday Review of Literature carried a weighty article on Indiana authors some years ago, he wrote a dour reply: Indiana's greatest contribution to culture was unquestionably the late Cinemactress Carole Lombard...