Word: earnestness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drive began in earnest last Monday as amendment supporters staged a night vigil on the Capitol steps in a rainstorm, praying for prayer. Inside the House chamber no amendment had yet been approved by committee, but 59 Representatives, mostly Republicans, took the floor Monday afternoon to speak in favor of one in a session that rolled on until well past dawn on Tuesday. Many speakers associated the absence of prayer in schools with such social evils as drug abuse and sexual promiscuity. Virginia Republican Frank Wolf charged dramatically that the rate of teen-age suicides "began to climb at approximately...
...earnest young woman recently proposed that all ethnic jokes be replaced by Martian jokes, in order to preserve goodwill. This is an absurd suggestion: in addition to making hypocrites of our spacemen, it would call for a return to the old-time two facedness described by White. If Americans refuse to accept the fact that all people (including victims of racial bias) are prejudiced to some degree, they risk losing the ability to distinguish racism from ethnic humor...
...rape, several heart attacks to which the family responds with admirable aplomb, gay-baiting, and a flatulent family dog named Sorrow. Irving showed much foresight in naming this dog Sorrow. First, so that after the dog dies, is stuffed and falls out of an airplane into the sea, the earnest young narrator can say "Sorrow floats." Later on in the movie this useful beast is at the heart of another equally profound statement when our young narrator says mournfully, "Love also floats." The problem with the movie is that everything floats on the surface with nothing substantial enough to prevent...
...much as 600 per bbl. but later settled back. At Lloyd's of London, nervous insurance underwriters met two or three times a day to assess the situation. They did not raise their rates significantly, but all this could change overnight if attacks on tankers should begin in earnest...
...Lagon may be "unwilling to fight in earnest" for his views, and may secretly fear that he and they are unable to withstand the challenge of ideological diversity. For our part, we applaud the appointment of professors who will challenge the conventional wisdom, whether more the "right" or the "left" or in the name of a new philosophy or fresh methodology. We know that there are too few, far too few, in the Arts departments of this University. Mr. Lagon will, we are afraid, emerge fundamentally unchallenged from his years at Harvard; perhaps his intellectual timorousness is the consequence...