Word: lessers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...most erudite of animals--sagacious frogs who were experts in insect biology, beautifully plumed birds who would manipulate song and poetry to the highest degree, blinking fish who were masters of modern languages, and many others. They convened daily, not only among themselves, but also with the younger and lesser-learned animals of the swamp, with whom they shared ideas through lively conversation and written scholarship...
Even for a duke of cyberspace like Bill Gates, the price seemed steep. In 1994 he paid the estate of oil baron Armand Hammer $30.8 million for one of Leonardo da Vinci's lesser notebooks. Compared with the Renaissance master's other surviving manuscripts, Codex Leicester (named for the English family that owned it for two centuries) is trifling, just 18 sheets of linen paper folded in half to produce 72 pages. It contains only modest samples of Leonardo's celebrated draftsmanship--no spectacular drawings of flying machines, no cutaways of the human anatomy or exploded views of geared gadgetry...
Political strategies are matched by economic tactics. Nelson mentions the financial incentive of the $133 spending limit allowed by the Election Commission for candidates running in pairs rather than the lesser amount of $100 for individuals...
...first, we shun such fawning. We tell our family and friends that we go to school in Boston and avoid dropping the H-bomb that might make lesser folk uncomfortable. In polite conversation, we grow adept at unconsciously substituting "major" for "concentration," "resident advisor" for "proctor" and "TA" for "TF." We pretend we go to a school like all other schools, only with a slightly higher average GPA and a slightly worse football team...
...this is fine, if a little too stridently observed--see David sweat in slow motion. But then he finds his true love (Lynn Redgrave!) and Shine takes a dive into soapsuds. The film ceases to be a cogent study of the disease of genius and devolves into two lesser creatures: an ordinary weepie and an Oscar contender. Shine is not an instrumental but a choral work--a trusty hymn to the human spirit. You will be moved, ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps that is all you, and the Academy, need to know...