Word: oddness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Many American Jews were angered and alarmed by the spectacle of the Rev. Jesse Jackson embracing Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat, and of the Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference joining Arafat in a chorus of We Shall Overcome. But to those who interpreted these odd scenes as a sign of black antiSemitism, a contradicting voice sounded last week. Said Vernon E. Jordan Jr., head of the National Urban League, in a widely publicized speech to a Catholic audience in Kansas City: "Black-Jewish relations should not be endangered by ill-considered flirtations with terrorist groups devoted...
Whether justified or not, the Big Oil protest, which was sponsored by a number of diverse labor and political groups came at an odd time. As it happened the most visible oil price gougers last week were not the oil companies but some of the more militant price hawks in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Iraq, Libya and Iran all announced boosts of 10% or more in the overall cost of their crude, and other producers seem likely to follow suit. What really alarmed oil consumers was that the Libyan and Iranian rise, like that announced by Mexico...
...odd way, the onrushing inflation is actually giving the economy a kind of deceptively healthy glow. With money available in seemingly inexhaustible quantities, neither business nor consumer spending shows signs of slowing much at all. In spite of wide agreement among economists that the U.S. is already in recession, September's unemployment level fell to 5.8% of the labor force, down from 6% in August; that decline suggests that businesses are not just continuing to keep factory lines humming, but are even expanding their production in the belief that someone will buy almost anything they can turn...
...odd sort of hero. A millionaire who often lived like a bum, sleeping in a closet with his clothes on-because he believed that taking them off promoted insomnia-and spitting on the floor even in his cherished laboratories. A picturesque swearer who hired assistants whom George Bernard Shaw called "sensitive, cheerful and profane; liars, braggarts and hustlers." A would-be tycoon so crotchety and bullheaded that he could give little credit to the ideas of others; so inept in business matters that he lost control of the immensely profitable companies he founded. An incurable show-off and self-promoter...
...cleverness he applies to the stuff of language, his individual words and sentences. At times this connoisseur of puns and multiple entendres can be seen doing proud headstands behind his latest verbal tricks. Without straining too hard or setting his sights on the outrageous, he usually finds just the odd phrasing, the curious reference to spark laughter. He describes Reg Prinz, a movie director filming one of Barth's novels during Letters...