Word: earnest
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Families have not completely seized the sitcom field this fall. ABC's Sledge Hammer!, about a trigger-happy cop who talks to his gun, is an earnest but lame attempt to satirize Dirty Harry-type heroes. CBS's Designing Women features a quartet of single friends in Atlanta who run a decorating business together, a sort of pre-mid-life Golden Girls. The show has a good cast (including Annie Potts and Dixie Carter) but an overload of formula gag writing ("Suzanne, if sex were fast food, there'd be an arch over your...
James Roosevelt Jr. '68, the notable exception, concealed his conciliatory private manner by making ill-advised direct attacks on the front-runner early in the race. As early as March, he had been dismissed as a shrill, small voice. Meanwhile, Kennedy found earnest and unsolicited defenders among devotees of his family, who abound in the district which first elected John F. Kennedy '40 to Congress...
...mouth good-nights or see-you-tomorrows. But this month CBS's Dan Rather started signing off with the exhortation "Courage," and the last word on his lips suddenly became the first thing on everyone's mind. To some it sounded intrusive, even bossy, the sort of thing an earnest, not very close friend might say uneasily to end a chance meeting. A CBS spokesperson responds, " 'Courage' is a word Dan likes a lot and feels comfortable with. He often uses it to sign letters and end conversations." Well okay, it's better than "Your humble and obedient servant." Will...
...next day the Chrysler Cup began in earnest. It is sort of an old fogy's Ryder Cup pitting the Yanks against the world. Palmer and Gene Littler were paired against Player and New Zealander Bob Charles. The course buzzed with hole-in-one fables. The P.G.A. Tour believed Palmer's feat to be unique, though Chi Chi Rodriguez claimed as many as five in six weeks. Miller Barber said, "Oh sure, I've won four or five automobiles over the years." Billy Casper was undecided whether his best was in Okinawa, where all Japan carried...
...watch what countries do than what they say. U.S. officials construed the refusals as signals to Washington that the Administration should treat its Central American friends with more respect, and more generously. There was strong suspicion among some State Department officials that while Panama and El Salvador were earnest about wanting no part of the contras, Honduras -- for the past four years a major unofficial contra refuge -- hopes to induce the U.S. to sweeten its aid allotment. Observers noted that a Honduran delegation was in Washington last week negotiating for a larger helping from the $300 million pot earmarked...