Word: genteel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Percy is aware that this forbidding subject requires a light touch. In fact, most readers know the author as the genteel Louisianian who wrote such mournfully charming novels as The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman and Love in the Ruins. But there is also Percy the Dixie Kierkegaard who wrote The Message in the Bottle. That 1975 collection of essays attempted to relieve the ache of self-estrangement by arguing that humankind was the glory of the universe because it was the only known species that used language (as distinguished from the intelligent communication of chimps and dolphins...
...Rizzo!" cried a woman in the crowd. "We don't want you as mayor." It was one of the few even slightly rude moments in a remarkably even-tempered, almost genteel campaign. It was also prophetic. Last week, in his quest to be Philadelphia's first black mayor, W. Wilson Goode reaped 97% of the city's black vote and took the primary by a margin of 7%. With a 65.6% turnout, the primary, like Chicago's bitter mayoral bout last month, evidenced emerging black power at municipal polls...
Knowles as the supercilious, genteel Sir Joseph and Bierko as the disgustingly disfigured seafarer Dick Deadeye play magnificently. Knowles, last seen as Figaro in the Lowell House Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro, gives a more distinguished performance this time: His production is impeccable and his stage presence especially his bulging eyes--is extraordinary, Bierko's loud, clear baritone, his bizarre facial contortions, and his dangling motions convey, in the best deadpan performance of the evening, Deadeye's extraordinary despicability and grossness...
...fund under the administration of the "chairman of the creative-writing department of Harvard University." Harvard, alas, does not have a creative-writing department (nor does Sewanee), and Dakin Williams plans to challenge his brother's will. Sewanee is intent on keeping the arrangement with Harvard as genteel as possible. Says University Counsel Edward Watson, a graduate of both Sewanee and Harvard Law School: "It will be resolved by these two institutions in a practical, harmonious way, not on a football field or in a courtroom or anywhere else like that...
...Cleese, hovers fussily over a man who is, after all, his best customer while the rest of the diners do their utmost to keep small talk flowing and decorum intact. The result is a devastating attack on the human (or is it merely middle class?) propensity for maintaining the genteel amenities no matter how brutally reality assails them...