Word: lilt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When asked about where I go to school by someone back home, after exhausting the evasive replies ("Massachusetts," "Boston," etc.), I finally say: "Um, Harvard?" I sound like an idiot when I say the name of this fine institution with an interrogative lilt and a tone of muttered apology. From conversations with friends and classmates, I know that I'm not the only one who plays this game...
...there with the innocent lilt of that riddle format, now didn't we? We bet you expected that the answer would be some sort of pun, as we'll admit we are wont to make--some petty witticism, with which you could chuckle your ennuiaway. Instead, though, you were shocked with a hideous hypothetical...
...minute she is tender, singing with a lilt as soft and sweet as cotton candy. The next she drives her points home by rapping tart, in-your-face rhymes as pungent as picante salsa. Afro-British singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry, 27, exhibited this sweet yet fiery (and fervently feminist) demeanor on her memorable 1989 debut album, Raw Like Sushi. The alluring dichotomy continues on her sensational new release, Homebrew. Call it the essence of being Neneh...
...Webber. But there is also something very wrong. Not one recent main-stem show has been set in today's America or taken inspiration from the best of today's pop music. Broadway is now the museum of the American musical. Guys and Dolls, for all its snazz and lilt, is a faithful revival of Loesser's 1950 hit. Crazy for You is a jolly update of Gershwin's 1930 Girl Crazy. Jelly's Last Jam is a spiked showcase for the rags and blues of Jelly Roll Morton, who flourished in Gershwin's day. Tourists go to these...
...friend of mine, a speechwriter for Sen. Tom Harkin, asked my advice on writing a speech for the West Virginia AFL-CIO. I suggested that he discuss the history of the labor movement in West Virginia, including the famous, bloody massacre at Paint Creek. Because of my faint Appalachian lilt, my friend understood it as "Pink Creek." Only a last-minute phone call saved the senator from certain humiliation...