Word: humdrums
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They cater to singles, couples and triples, straights and gays and feys, blacks and whites, the well-shaped or the merely well-heeled-and just about anyone else who yearns to break out of 9-to-5 humdrum into a space-age world of mesmeric lighting, Neronian dècor and, of course, music, music, music. They are the new breed of discothèque, moth-gathering hotpots of the urban night. Discomania is the latest passion of faddish, fickle American city dwellers, turning daytime Jekylls and Jacquelines into nocturnal and nonma-levolent Hydes and Heidis gyrating through smoke...
Students from Boston University are apparently buying more science fiction books, Bill Simpson, who has worked at the BU store for six years, says. He says he believes this is because "students are studying more these days and science fiction is a way for them to escape from their humdrum lives...
Mondale pursued his assignment doggedly-and with more zest than he had shown in his own earlier aborted presidential quest. He improved on a previously humdrum speaking technique, lacing his talks with self-deprecating humor. In the end, newsmen voted his the happiest of the presidential and vice-presidential campaigns. Parodying an oft-repeated line from Mondale's speeches, "We want jobs -not hot air," reporters presented Mondale with a T shirt labeled WE WANT NEWS-NOT HOT AIR. He donned it at the end of an Election Day program that took him from tiny (pop. 2,000) Afton...
...Machine hammered home its superiority with each game. Manager Sparky Anderson apologized for the rather humdrum manner in which the Reds won the opening game. Said Anderson of the 5-1 victory: "I don't think we played very exciting baseball. We ought to be more aggressive." For the Reds, lack of aggression meant stealing only one base. A seamless defense purloined potential Yankee hits, and strong Red arms kept New York base runners back on their heels. Outfielders George Foster, Cesar Geronimo and Ken Griffey fired balls back to the infield so quickly and so accurately that...
Yates can make reading about humdrum pathos - the slow smashup of befuddled lives - invigorating and even gripping. He knows how to pace his material for maximum interest - when to summarize, when to show a scene in full. The dialogue is artful enough to sound natural. In his descriptive prose every word works quietly to inspire the illusion that things are happening by themselves. Even Emily's walk-on lovers are able to stand - as characters - on their own two legs...