Word: hydrophobia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with their husbands in provincial Sverdlovsk, in the Urals. First the women talked of Moscow's culture and comforts, but when assured that Sverdlovsk has culture, too, the most common excuse was: "My Mama is sick." One woman complained that she had nine different ailments (the ninth: hydrophobia against the kind of water used in Sverdlovsk). Together, the seven women claimed a total of 67 maladies that only living in Moscow seemed to check...
...enjoying his paneled and well-equipped office (TV, hifi, radio, air conditioning), he is apt to be stomping about outside, shooting at pigeons with a shotgun, or scaring away stray dogs with a BB gun ("I don't see anything wrong with that. Some have hydrophobia"). One apocryphal story has it that on one pigeon shoot he accidentally pinked a member of the Teachers College Board of Illinois...
...plays no golf or other sports; in fact, he does not need to. He gets his exercise in his office, where he can't sit still. "It gives me hydrophobia," he says. While dictating, talking, or just thinking, Jacobsen paces swiftly back & forth for hours on end, moving so fast that visitors have to swivel their heads to keep him in view -like watching the ball in a tennis match. When Jacobsen gets really interested in conversation, he paces in a big, swooping circle, walking right around visitors. They usually stop trying to swivel around with him, just...