Word: fatuous
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When Alexander Wiley asked him about his "thoughts on your faith," Glenn might easily have faltered, or given an embarrassed or fatuous reply, but his forthright answer won an ovation from the audience. "I can't say that while in orbit you sit there and pray," he said. "It's a very busy time . . . My religion is not a fire-engine type of religion-not one to be called on in emergency and then put God back in the woodwork. My peace has been made with my maker for a number of years, so I had no particular...
This growth, he implied, has been fortunate. For the federal system, in situations, where a "sweeping generalized edict from the national government might be futile or even fatuous", "recognizes diversity and achieves unity" through such devices as granting federal aid to the states. "It stimulates the states to action--and to higher standards of action--by offering matching funds on specific occasions...
...Napoleon, having just escaped from Elba, was marching up to Paris to begin the historic Hundred Days, which were to end with Waterloo. And as Napoleon approached-"the Eagle flying from steeple to steeple," rallying to his standard the regiments sent against him-King Louis XVIII, fat and fatuous, was fleeing north toward the Belgian border amid a confusion of loyal musketeers and grenadiers...
...assume they are not testing? . . . Our Allies are watching what we do, not what we say." Backed by a dozen other Senators,* Connecticut Democrat Thomas Dodd introduced a resolution calling for the U.S. to resume nuclear tests immediately. Stopping the tests in 1958, said Dodd, "was the most fatuous blunder in all our history...
...invent a new word: acronym (from the Greek akros for tip, onyma for name), which first appeared in dictionaries in 1947. Most insidious breeders are public relations experts, adept at spawning the punch word that sums up an organization, then, to fit its letters, turning out an often fatuous full title. Examples: WAIF (Women's Adoption International Fund) and the recently launched piggyback acronym YOU (Youth Out for UNICEF). Last week Mississippi segregationists coined yet another: SAFE, meaning Southern Action for Expansion...