Word: genteel
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Recently the author let someone write an introduction to one of her books that strokes away your jitters; it says Giovanni "curses with a style and sense of the genteel, a freedom and control in an admirable balance that is impossible to imitate." Occasionally, she has quoted jingles in her essays that lend themselves to a certain style, like "Nothing black but a Cadillac," after which she added politely, "Niggers ought to be buried in Cadillacs because that's what's killing us." Gentility. GM, Lord & Taylor, Philco "new color" TV...but isn't that what she meant when...
First came the initial shock and the sleepless nights. Randolph Hearst, by nature not given to quick and decisive action, managed to keep calm while awaiting, then struggling to comply with, the demands of the S.L.A. Catherine, his wife, genteel daughter of a Georgia telephone executive, was dumbfounded by the violence and noticeably more anxious. A devout Roman Catholic, she spent many hours in prayer. In their helplessness, the parents began to clutch at straws: two psychics were invited to the Hearsts' house in suburban Hillsborough and ran their fingers over a map of Northern California seeking "impulses...
Under Shanker's leadership since 1964, the U.F.T. has shown that teachers could be transformed from genteel professionals who seldom raise their voices into members of an aggressive union that rarely lowers its voice...
After that, the Cavafys were to remain shabbily genteel, though they retained the lofty airs and graces of a family that had once known wealth. At age 29, Cavafy was appointed a special clerk in the irrigation service of Alexandria's Ministry of Public Works. Despite small, unperiodic raises, he remained a middle-level functionary for most of his days...
...what they are not-the log of a whaling voyage, the writhings of a student who murders an old pawnbroker-and thus all are stratagems of a kind. But Hargrave's, Moore's and Crichton's constructs are far more elaborate, since they soberly imitate the genteel literary conventions and taboos of a century...