Word: fowler
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...large, rich, beautiful island, the home of the cigar, is denied." And not even the imminence of D-day could keep him from correcting Britain's Director of Military Intelligence: "Why must you write 'intensive' here? 'Intense' is the right word. You should read Fowler's Modern English Usage on the use of the two words...
...Fowler vs. Swift, the case, involves a schoolteacher, Fowler, who lost his job because the low-flying antics of stunt pilot Swift gave him a case of nerves. He sued and was awarded $3,500 on the count of negligence by the lower mock court on October...
Most of Durante's word-mangling is spontaneous, Fowler swears-though Jimmy is shrewd enough to know that "if I learned to pronounce the big words, 60 of my pals would be out of work next day, includin' myself." Fowler has collected dozens of Durante's malapropisms. In a low mood, Jimmy once said, "The red corpsuckles is gone from my veins. I'm just a hollow shelf." Another time, when he had mistaken a firebreak clearing in the woods for the highway, he remarked, "Us perfessors don't get out of the chemical lavatory...
...King's Transom." Jimmy Durante emerges from Fowler's pages as a strangely unworldly creature driven by a deep wish to be liked by everybody. He seems genuinely surprised to be making "a king's transom." He dislikes any sort of adulation: "I don't want nobody to put me on a pedasill." And he is a notorious soft touch: in 1935 a Broadway character known as Cooney the Boom formed a moochers' syndicate which touched Jimmy for $5 a head after each night's performance of Jumbo and then kicked back...
...essence of Jimmy's character, as drawn by Fowler, is revealed in his visit to Rosie, the elephant who had co-starred with him in Jumbo and then turned melancholy when the show closed. "Rosie! Rosie! It's Nosey!" said Durante. Rosie trumpeted and lay down on all fours, as she had been taught to do in Jumbo. Jimmy tried to wrap his arms around her. "Rosie ain't forgot me," he cried, tears in his voice. "Look! She still loves...