Word: grained
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...have heard many things about rows and rows of neatly symmetric desks, with neatly symmetric businessmen behind them, and about automated managers running them, these are all cliches without a grain of truth, aren't they...
...ethereal. Many abound with typical Guimarāes Rosa characters-robust, self-reliant, as tough and conspicuous as knots in sawn planks. But the ones that matter most are those whose concentric fibers appear to loosen until, stubborn obstructions no longer, they begin to flow with the grain...
...Instead, voters in each state decide between slates of opposing electors chosen by the contending parties. In Kansas, for example, voters who put their X beside Richard Nixon's name this Nov. 5 will actually be choosing seven Republicans, among them Dean S. Evans Sr., 47, a Salina grain and cattle dealer and regular party contributor. Kansans who prefer Hubert Humphrey will actually vote for seven Democrats, including Mrs. Georgia Neese Clark Gray, 68, a Topeka bank president and U.S. Treasurer under Harry Truman...
...mixture in all this of English and American, humorous and serious, is what gives Sheed's writing its characteristic texture. His crisp craftsmanship seems to come from the English satirical tradition, but beneath this veneer the American grain runs deep: he knows his way intimately around the moral and physical landscape of the U.S. middle class. Sheed relishes the ridiculous but champions the sane and normal. His protagonists are ordinary guys desperately trying to fend off the world's idiocies and evils long enough to define themselves and do the decent thing. They rarely succeed completely. Solitary Baseball...
...ironic statement: it is Worthington's recurring point that life is drift as much as design. In a wry put-on, Cozzens may have intended'to mock that notion. But if that is the case, the novel still fails, because Cozzens has chosen to write against the grain of his own special talent-that of a meticulous and compulsive craftsman-which demands the imposition of a precise design. The anti-novel requires bright irreverence, an almost exuberant sense of the absurd. It is just not-and it is easy to imagine Cozzens wincing at the phrase...