Word: numbingly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...generations of immigrants, work was ultimately availing; the numb toil of an illiterate grandfather got the father a foothold and a high school education, and the son wound up in college or even law school. A woman who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in lower Manhattan had a niece who made it to the halcyon Bronx, and another generation on, the family went to Westchester County. So for millions of Americans, as they labored through the complexities of generations, work worked, and the immigrant work ethic came at last to merge with the Protestant work ethic...
...short story wanders 34-year-old Mark Helprin with his second collection of short fictions. "Ellis Island" and Other Stories. And though we might hope him to be the prophet of the short story's Second Coming, a blazing savior curing the lepers and breathing voltage into numb forms, we find that he's not quite what we were looking for. Instead, we must relegate him to the narrow ranks of the "solid" young performers who, while they are not yet the transcendent pace-setters, at least don't drop the torch. Pathetically, even this compromise is good news...
...survive a nuclear attack if you drive to Greenfield. Graham said. "If you are stuck in traffic, it says you shouldn't leave your car...It says you shouldn't bring alcohol or narcotics. Maybe those are the only things we should bring with us, just to numb our minds," Graham added...
...Pentagon has kept the public "psychically numb" to the dangers of nuclear warfarc, Caldicott, an Australian-born physician, said...
There were a lot of them once--ringing doorbells in small Iowa towns to peddle themselves like some new kind of Fuller Brush; standing knee-deep in New Hampshire snow banks, smiles frozen in place; shaking the hands of factory workers until their fingers went numb; giving speech after speech after speech until their voices cracked; eating creamed chicken until they could take it no more; talking about momentum, strategy, winning and losing--especially losing...