Word: dyspnea
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When his style is working, though, Perelman can be so funny it's almost awe-inspiring. What can one say about the words he sprinkles through the book, always in impeccably proper context: words like dyspnea, archimandrite, steatopygous, and eisteddfod? And what would Dickens have given to use this description of a bellhop at an old Hollywood hotel: "a stoop-shouldered, overworked wraith with an air of patient resignation like that of Zasu Pitts." Perelman is making a pass at a beautiful colleen (all his women are beautiful but for lips or nostrils that are a trifle too sensuous...
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