Word: humbugged
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What do Macdonald's windmills have in common as the tiller sees them? Humbug. Cant. The special form of dishonesty that betrays itself as lack of style. Irving Howe once complained that if Jesus were to deliver the Sermon on the Mount tomorrow, "Dwight Macdonald would write that while 'Mr. Christ makes some telling points' they suffer from syntactical confusion and 'a woolly, pretentious style.' " Macdonald's answer: "Were the Sermon woolly," that would be "my reaction, and I should be right, since in that case the Sermon would not be the great moral...
Seale has also dispensed with the lines of another character in the first act, the Doctor, a self-confessed quack who cures his patients by means of their own irrational faith in science. "Faith is humbug, but it works," he tells the Microbe, thus introducing one of the basic themes of the play...
...resignation," he is taking the easy route. He is striving to convince others of CCNY's integrity instead of safeguarding the institution's integrity by making an enlightened decision. In saying, "We might turn around and rehire him without the degree," Gross implicitly admits they are just playing bureaucratic humbug. Lies like Horovitz's are despicable; they are especially stupid when they are unnecessary, as in this case where the degree played no role in his hiring four years ago. But the proposed penalty--dismissal--is like cutting off the hands of a shoplifter; the punishment does not parallel...
...capable of causing objects to float in midair. As Martin Gardner notes, "She is a pretty, plump, dark-eyed little charlatan who took the stage name of Ninel because it is Lenin spelled backward. She is no more a sensitive than Kreskin, and like that amiable American television humbug, she is basically show biz." Indeed, Ninel has been caught cheating more than once by Soviet Establishment scientists...
...pigs. Talk about ethics is humbug, meant only for the stupid. Life has no meaning other than to satisfy one's appetite for food and women. There is no soul...