Word: nastiest
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When the hurricane of 1938 swarmed over Long Island, it played hob with the oyster beds. That is one reason for higher oyster prices this year. Oystermen have other foes. Nastiest is a thing called the drill, which bores through the oyster's shell, devours the oyster. One active drill can liquidate 30 to 200 oysters a season; a swarm of them can wipe out a young crop. But most oystermen save their wrath for the starfish (good for nothing but fertilizer), which glaums on an oyster, wears it out until it opens up, then eats it. Oystermen fight...
...skivvy, a woman, a hag. Tea, coffee or cocoa is hogwash or pigswill. A boy who studies hard, swots, is treated with the contempt which he deserves. Many and lurid are the names for a new boy: new brat, new squit, new scum, fresh herring. Richest and nastiest is the group of epithets schoolboys apply to townies, the lowest form of animal life, or schoolmates they dislike. Samples: swine, tick, cad, oik, lout, drip, squirt, scug, goof. Townies often retaliate: e.g., their name for schoolboys of Durham University is varsity tits...
...trite plot is not helped much by the dialogue. There are frequent scenes in which one seriously suspects that Miss Lamarr will, at any moment, be tied to the railroad tracks, but fortunately there are others (not so frequent) which reminds one of Clare Booth at her nastiest best. Spencer Tracy is definitely out of place. He is aphoristic, as usual, but he is convincingly so in a steaming jungle not in an expensive night club. Miss Lamarr is esentially decorative although her acting shows improvement. Veree Teasdale is the saving grace of the movie, as a superficial, clever sophisticate...