Word: humdrum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Deputies, when a vote of confidence was asked, did not vote against the Government of France. Instead they abstained from voting at all. Confidence was voted by a majority of 196 in an extremely vague declaration of Cabinet policy which leaves Premier Sarraut's hands virtually free. A humdrum political wheelhorse, the Premier aims merely to hold on until the general election. Cried Sexagenarian Sarraut: "I am an old militant, one who, as he grows older, feels his passionate love for France and for the Republic increase!" This declaration the Right greeted with derisive shouts...
...prediction was noted with advancing age. Subjects earning $40 to $50 per week guessed what they would do better than those earning less or more. There was a general tendency to overestimate the time devoted to reading, chatting, cinema and other recreation, and to underestimate that consumed by humdrum activities-sleep, work, rest, transportation, shopping, personal care. Protestants predicted themselves better than Catholics, and Catholics better than Jews, a fact which Dr. Sorokin took to mean that the higher the emotional content of a subject's religion, the less able he is to say what he will...
...Romantic Rebels places Byron's life in perspective with the astonishing careers of Keats and Shelley, paints the three poets and their wives and many mistresses as unearthly children of genius whose love affairs, political activities and financial squabbles are like charming and pathetic parodies of a humdrum adult world. Both books devote much attention to the social background. At the time of Byron's fame, England was ruled by the fat, "superbly filthy" Prince of Wales, later George IV, who was known to have burst into tears when Beau Brummell criticized his clothing, and whose greatest achievement...
...some time the bull-necked War Minister has been weeding out of Japan's military elite officers hostile to his clique. Some of the roughest weeding, the most heartbreaking demotions and transfers of brilliant, high-strung fighters to humdrum posts, was done by General Nagata, assassinated last week to the high-strung satisfaction of an Army crowd younger than groveling old Hayashi...
...made him desperate. Mrs. Fitzherbert's rival, Lady Jersey, intrigued to break their relationship. Suddenly the prince abandoned Mrs. Fitzherbert and officially took to wife Princess Caroline of Brunswick in order to raise money quickly. The Princess of Wales was ugly, slovenly, insane "in a humdrum though crazy way" and suffered one of the most wretched married careers in royal history. Lady Jersey, appointed lady of the bedchamber, intercepted her letters, lied to her and about her, put Epsom Salts in her supper on her wedding night, humiliated her in public with the Prince, and continued "these delightful...