Word: gentility
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...celebrity-packed luncheon, whisked over Paris in a helicopter and showered with gifts. Alternately sobbing and giggling for photographers and newsmen, she described her joy: "I don't know how it all happened. All I know is that I'm gentille because everyone else is gentil. All those beautiful people. All those beautiful presents. Gentil, so gentil, everyone is gentil, and they say I merit it ... The only one in all the world that I can get angry with is myself-because...
...limeño "were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." In fact, Latins in general treat four-syllable words with the careless ease North Americans reserve for four-letter words. People in public life, even second-raters, are often described in the newspapers as ilustre, gentil, eminente. Now you just cannot translate some of these words nor the attitude that prompts them. Their English equivalents should be "illustrious," "genteel," "eminent," but they do not mean the same. Use them on a U.S. citizen and you might get a punch in the nose; use the Spanish words...