Word: mcwhirters
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...squabble triggered a marketing epiphany. Figuring that pub-goers would be grateful for a record book that settled debates and bar bets, Beaver created one. In 1954 he tapped a pair of brothers for the task: Norris and Ross McWhirter, who ran a London fact-finding agency. The idea was to distribute the book free of charge to bars in a ploy to generate publicity. The first edition, first titled the Guinness Book of World Records, debuted in 1955. It was a hit. Some 50,000 copies were reprinted and sold; demand proved so high that the book went through...
Over the ensuing decades, the book became a phenomenon, selling more than 120 million copies in 37 languages. The McWhirters were stringent fact-checkers, often traveling long distances to adjudicate whether potential-record holders met the book's standards. (Ross McWhirter was assassinated in 1975 by the IRA; Norris McWhirter quit editing the book in the mid-1980s). Record holders receive certificates from Guinness, though not all records are selected for inclusion in the book, which receives some 65,000 record claims every year. Rights to the book, which has evolved from an almanac into a glossy, hard-cover item...
...White Washington: Dan Goodgame, Ann Blackman, Margaret Carlson, James Carney, Michael Duffy, Julie Johnson, J.F.O. McAllister, Jay Peterzell, Suneel Ratan, Elaine Shannon, Dick Thompson, Adam Zagorin, Melissa August New York: Janice C. Simpson, Edward Barnes, John F. Dickerson Boston: Sam Allis Chicago: Jon D. Hull, Elizabeth Taylor Detroit: William McWhirter Atlanta: Michael Riley Houston: Richard Woodbury Miami: Cathy Booth Los Angeles: Jordan Bonfante, Jeanne McDowell, Sylvester Monroe, Jeffrey Ressner, James Willwerth, Patrick E. Cole San Francisco: David S. Jackson London: Barry Hillenbrand Paris: Thomas A. Sancton, Margot Hornblower Brussels: Jay Branegan Bonn: James O. Jackson Central Europe: James L. Graff...
...intellectuality in national life. Liberal academics, defending the trend toward de-emphasis of the classics, responded that Bloom's prescriptions are unsuited to a society as heterogeneous as America's. The book has sold 800,000 copies and has just been issued in paperback. TIME senior correspondent William McWhirter spent four hours with Bloom, 58, surrounded by classic texts and European oil paintings in his apartment overlooking the campus...
...mother? No standard reference book troubles with such trivia, but an offbeat guide called the Guinness Book of Records answers such questions with gusto ... [It is] the world's greatest grab bag of mosts, leasts, longests, shortests, fastests and slowests ... Chosen to compile the book were Norris and Ross McWhirter ... [They] comb thousands of journals to keep their superlatives up to date, correspond with authorities in 110 countries, scan heaps of musty books to track down obscure points ... And when all else fails, they turn to an army of volunteer assistants, including a mathematics expert lodged in Broadmoor criminal lunatic...