Word: humorlessness
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...simple principle: Take from the rich and give to the poor, then take from the poor. Just after World War II this was not difficult. Argentina was fat with hard foreign currency from its exports of wheat and beef. While Juan donated the machismo, Eva provided the cunning and humorless drive. Largely under her direction, the wealth was spread...
...chief interest; Andover, like other schools, has seen an explosion of interest in art, music, drama and dance. Boy-girl friendships are easygoing, though formal dating is rare and romances do not last long in the fishbowl of a residential school. "The school used to be rigorous but humorless," says English Department Head Kelly Wise. "Now there is more laughter and joy and excitement than there was a few years ago." And every bit as much schoolwork. The days when more than half of Andover's senior class sailed into Yale or Harvard are long gone. Andover still gets...
...reading the article "60-Minute Dash" [March 27], I was aghast at the comment from ABC's Bob Shanks that 60 Minutes is "pontifical and humorless" and that its 14-minute pieces seem too long...
...institution to order them to have faith. This may seem an almost sacrilegious thing to say about a man whose reputation is largely built on being a Catholic writer, but Catholicism for Greene is a prop. It's almost a gimmick, the straight man in a series of humorless, introspective routines. Want to introduce the possibility of belief into your characters' lives? Done--make them fallen or apostate Catholics. After that you don't even have to bother to flesh out the reasons for their guilt and self-contempt. The very fact that The Church is looking over their shoulder...
...shoot yourself." Yet the sad fact is that mirth in the U.S. is neither what it once was nor what it might be. As early as 1968, in The Rise and Fall of American Humor, English Professor Jesse Bier solemnly declared that "we are in great part humorless as never before." Other humor experts, who cannily refuse to be associated with their opinions, believe that laughter has continued to dwindle because Americans are losing their former skill at recognizing humor when it comes along unannounced. The good news: relief is at hand...