Word: jitter
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...fever chart"-using a special kind of emotional arithmetic, adding two and two to get zero. Luckman preferred to add U.S. employment of 59 million (still close to its alltime high), savings of $200 billion and a purchasing power 53% higher than prewar. "Too many . . . have accepted the jabber-jitter estimates of what is wrong with America, instead of finding out . . . what is right...
...judgment against the Hollywood Canteen for an injury to her coccyx, suffered while dancing with a "jive-maddened" Marine. Her plight inspired Los Angeles Superior Judge Henry M. Willis to a judicial definition of "jitterbug." Said he: "The word bug is defined ... as a crazy person. The word jitter means extreme nervousness. This combination, therefore, approaches the description of one witness who said the jitterbug dance was crazy...
...They were the zoot-suit wearers, the jive bombers and the jitter-bugs...
...means to an end, is hardly more than a canapé. Good works - Bundles for Brit ain, aid to Finland, homes for children refugees - take a lot of time because the reward of generosity is favorable publicity. Thus life for Julian and Amanda is an intense jitter of methodical planning to do things which give them no real pleasure. Even their off-hours have to be rationed to the last minute: "SLEEP (for efficiency purposes) 7 hrs. 18 min. ; CONVERSA TION WITH STAFF (for good-will and esprit de corps purposes) 12 min.; TALK WITH BARBER OR MANICURIST (for purpose...
...people, going to a Symphony concert is a plain and simple evil, and not even a necessary one--like sending birthday presents to great-aunts. But more than a few Harvard jitter-bugs and Totem Pole devotees have echoed the words of one Freshman who, on returning home after his first year at college, was asked what he'd grained culturally during the year...