Word: hic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hiccup is an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm that causes an abrupt intake of breath. An instant later, and also involuntarily, the opening in the larnyx (the glottis) closes and cuts off the flow of air, thus creating the audible hic. To most persons, it is merely annoying. But if it continues for days, it can be seriously weakening, as it was in 1954 for Pope Pius XII. More common and at least as worrisome is the effect on patients undergoing surgery, especially on the torso. The spasms complicate the surgeon's delicate maneuvers; during postoperative recovery, they...
...extort dimes in the bathroom. A girl glides by and three heads snap with the comic suddenness of recalcitrant window shades. "Fine bod," they say behind their hands and pass on to higher conquest. They stop to dispute, and not knowing the civilized use of velleities, fall to pushing. "Hic Rhodus, hic salta," cries one. They just shove him again, which is clearly what he deserves...
...music demonstration, Hortensio (Todd Drexel) at least actually plays the 'cello on stage. And when Lucentio (Robert Benedict) pretends to give Bianca a Latin lesson, "Hic ibat Simois," etc. has been supplanted by "Gallia est omnis," etc. on the undoubtedly accurate grounds that Caesar's De Bello Gallico will be more familiar to audiences than Ovid's Heroides. One wonders, however, why any of these three gentlemen would want to marry Bianca, for Geneva Bugbee makes her an insipid nullity...
...deliver the male. Best line is punched out by Tony Randall, playing as usual the sort of neurotic who, when hurt, hollers "Couch!" When the chemist cooks up a batch of intoxicating mints, Tony gobbles a fistful, gets drunk and belligerent. "Drunk!" he bellows. "Whaddya mean, drunk? I can (hic) hold my candy...
...leftist intellectuals of the period, many of whom saw in Socialism an outlet for idealistic views of human potential. Howard Fast, for example, upon leaving the Communist party in 1956, denounced it in a book called The Naked God. The title succinctly sums up Fast's attitude of worship, hic communism of illusion, an attitude obverse to Brecht's communism of disillusion...