Word: lief
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
From Norway to New Guinea. That was just to Sverdrup's liking. As venturesome as an earlier Norseman named Lief, he was born with "a yen for the different." He quit Norway at 17 to study at Minnesota's Augsburg College, later got a degree in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota. After a World War I stint as a lieutenant (he got his citizenship while in uniform) Sverdrup teamed up with John Ira Parcel, one of his old professors at Minnesota, to tackle big construction jobs. They built nine bridges over the Missouri River, four across...
...long imprisonment in a literary footnote. He was put there by his onetime friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, who once declared: "I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion...