Word: dumbing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...disdainful of life in Buckingham Palace. His imperturbable wife, Queen Elizabeth II. The dour Princess Anne, lining up a TV interview to pay for her plane ticket to Australia. The family rogue, Prince Andrew, smuggling porn actresses into the palace when his mother leaves on holiday. Prince Edward, ever dumb and awkward...
Despite my best efforts, however, I finished and survived. The really dumb thing is that I knew exactly what. I was getting myself into. You see, everyone who lives in the Boston area knows everything about the Marathon...
...mystic nouns: gentrification, quichification, greenmail, dealignment, watershed elections and apron strings (the political coattails of a female candidate). But students of the language agree that adjectives do most of the work, smuggling in actual information under the guise of normal journalism. Thus the use of soft-spoken (mousy), loyal (dumb), high-minded (inept), hardworking (plodding), self-made (crooked) and pragmatic (totally immoral). A person who is dangerous as well as immoral can be described as a fierce competitor or gut fighter, and a meddler who cannot leave his subordinates alone is a hands-on executive. When strung together properly, apparently...
...more time: the story is told that a Cajun was brought to trial for slaughtering 100 egrets, the snow-white fowl that are protected under Louisiana law. The judge, dumb struck by the senselessness of it all, demanded, "What did you do with them...
Bank of America's stumble occurred just as the institution was starting to recover from four years of slumping profits. Said President Samuel Armacost: "We all hate surprises, but one of this magnitude drives you nuts. It's going to be seen, correctly, as a dumb thing to have occurred...