Word: gummed
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...proceedings were conducted in an atmosphere reminiscent of a Southern female academy, vintage 1845. Super-chaperones shooed off men, warned each of the 40 contestants not to drink, smoke or chew gum. Stiffly genteel throughout, the chaperones simply ignored a man with field glasses who peered from a nearby sundeck into the solarium of the Senator Hotel when the girls assembled there (fully clothed). At one point the young ladies were inducted into a "sorority" called Mu Alpha Sigma, which was invented by the contest directors solely for Miss America entrants. Its motto: Modesty, Ambition, Success...
...cartoon in the weekly Tribune showed a British kid asking a G.I.: "Any gum, chum, on a strictly longterm, interest-free, dollar-loan basis...
...were excited at the prospect of seeing their fathers and mothers again. But five years of chewing U.S. gum, watching U.S. ball games and listening to Frank Sinatra had left their mark. Many had lost their childhood accents, and all had achieved a glib mastery of U.S. slang. Said twelve-year-old Norman Whitehead, after a final subway ride and ice-cream binge: "I'm going to tell my parents that I painted the town red-that will defeat them...
Some of the youngsters could remember England only hazily. Others were frankly dubious about life in the British Isles. Like explorers setting off for darkest Africa, some had provisioned themselves heavily with flapjack flour, maple syrup, gum, catsup and other gastronomic delights. Small boys clutched baseball mitts and comic books. Older girls wore open-toed shoes, shuddered at an awful possibility-England might be "too dead" after the giddy pace in U.S. high schools...
...entries were in the field. But everyone knew that 18 of them scarcely had a chance against Titan, the trim cherry bay colt with the proud Hanover name, who trotted a record-breaking two-minute mile as a two-year-old last year. His driver was a champ too: gum-chewing Brooklyn-bred Harry Pownall, who at 42 is a youngster among sulky drivers...