Word: humorous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...orator he is a failure, but as a man of action he is "a national asset." Two un-Irish features stand out in his physiognomy and character; he has an egg-shaped head with eyes deep set and far apart; he is "an Irishman without a sense of humor...
...SHORT STORIES (WITH SAMPLES)?Ring Lardner ? Scribner ($2.00). Ring Lardner is experiencing the difficult honor of being overpraised by those zealous critics whose word of endorsement is death to ambition. Adored by H. L. Mencken, Gilbert Seldes and F. P. Awood Broun, he will need all his humor and poise to keep from showing off. Thus far he has succeeded. The delightful thing about this book of short stories is not the amusing burlesque framework, ridiculing those textbooks that offer to teach illiterate soda-clerks to earn $25,000 in the writing business...
...broiling sun and attacked that most revered of institutions the prohibition joke. Lest they continue to merit the reputation for over-hasty action, once gained by speed on the trigger and again confirmed by gubernatorial impeachments, the Oklahoma have, however, considerately buried their protest against this kind of humor in the body of a speech in defense of prohibition, delivered before the National Editorial Association...
...creating respect for all laws and especially obedience to the Volstead Act is not in the least convincing to those people who doubt the value of law in general and prohibition statutes in particular; yet it is this class that must be persuaded to discard "wet" humor. The only needed reason for discarding the prohibition joke is obviously that it is no longer funny. While the real arguments may not have been stated it is, nevertheless, surprising that the cultivated Eastern editors who have gone on blithely printing reams of "wet" criticisms should hear the first sharp objections to that...
...that the spell is broken it is barely possible that the crusade will extend to other jokes that have long outlived their humor. When Pat and Mike and the optimist and the pessimists beloved of last years Seniors, pass into that profound rest which their long services have earned for them. It is conceivable that after-dinner speakers will be more popular, that humorous magazines will actually be funny; and even that class smokers may, become enjoyable. At least one fondly hopes that others will fellow the lead of the Oklahoma...