Word: kindlier
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Gray thinks that Proulx's highest gift is for comedy, and he may be right. Or it may be that the darker early stories (collected as Heart Songs) and Postcards are simply too rough to be read comfortably. But The Shipping News is funnier and kindlier than Proulx's other work -- not precisely light in tone, the author says wryly, but "light blue." Though the commotion of being abruptly famous feels "like I've backed into some bizarre machinery," her professional life is blissful now. This is not so much due to the shelfful of literary prizes she has collected...
...words are another matter, in particular the assertive second verse, which calls on the deity to scatter the monarch's enemies, in phrases much admired by Queen Victoria: "Confound their politics/ Frustrate their knavish tricks." Last month the Church of England's Liturgical Commission suggested substituting a kindlier version, written by a London shoemaker in 1836, for use when the anthem is sung at Remembrance Day services for the dead of the two World Wars. Sample lines: "Lord, make the nations see/ That men should brothers...
...welled in his eyes, Conner concluded bravely, "There's no reason for America to think we're in any position but No. 1." Some American critics claimed that Conner had paid insufficient heed to his navigator and tactician and had thereby missed some crucial wind shifts. A kindlier assessment came from Australia's Lexcen: "Dennis saved the Cup the last time [in 1980], and he deserves the credit for almost saving the Cup this time...
...Times made him out a gentle crank, quoting a complaint of Bush's that too many students attend universities these days, and thus cannot be adequately educated-the sort of hackneyed wail that Bush himself would never have dwelt on or even considered right plucked from a greater, kindlier context. Bush's world was the greater, kindlier context. Like Samuel Johnson he knew everything worth knowing. Like Johnson, too, he was born to teach books. Few people are. It is an odd pursuit. Literary study stands at the center of modern education, but when one tries to determine...
Though volcanoes can kill - eruptions have cost more than 100,000 lives in the past two centuries - they have a kindlier side as well. Some of the world's most fertile soil, like that on the Indonesian island of Java, has been created by lava and ash from volcanoes. The crystalline material, mostly silicates, is often rich ash only calcium and a variety of other elements. The lava and ash not only help the soil retain moisture but they weather rapidly and usually release valuable nutrients. Volcanic debris can also be used commercially as cement additives, as ingredients...