Word: dourness
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...chief of the U.S. Army Ground Forces, Lieut. General Lesley James McNair had whipped millions of civilians into the greatest Army in the nation's history. A skeptical, gently dour little professional, "Whitey" McNair had done it without raising his voice, and with rare recourse to his considerable vocabulary of caustic profanity...
Margery, barmaid to the House of Commons, poured a double Scotch for dour, flushed parliamentary Labor Party Boss Arthur Greenwood. Sipping, he sighed: "That blasted bill! Ehh, what a life...
Adolf's Choice. Rundstedt's unenviable place in the west was taken over by Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, a slow-moving, 61-year-old officer who had done some fair to good defensive fighting in Russia up to last autumn. A Junker himself, dour Kluge, whom German soldiers call "Melancholy Baby," is a commander of considerably less standing than Rundstedt, may give Marshal Rommel a freer hand...
...Dour Day. Aside from whatever lift of spirit that fact gave him, D-day found Ike Eisenhower in one of his worst moods. The Supreme Commander had little to do but wait in galling idleness during the slow-treading hours before the vast fleets of landing craft and gliders could put their troops ashore, and some vestige of order begin to appear out of the vast amphibious chaos...
...authorities sought ways to cheer the dour people. Amid Berlin's debris 72 movie theaters kept open; they held high priority in air-raid repair. A flower show in the capital featured half a million tulips. The Nazi Party stepped up weekend sports; Berliners had a choice of boating on the Wannsee, trotting races at Mariendorf, steeplechasing at Karlshorst, football, tennis and hockey matches. The radio urged: "The human body and soul need the stimulating reactions of the laughing muscles. He who cannot laugh lives in vain...