Word: omened
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Last week George VI and Queen Elizabeth became the first ruling British monarchs to set foot on the New World. As it happened, the first foot each set down when they left the gangplank of the Empress of Australia at Quebec was the left foot. This ill omen was somewhat reflected in the reserved manner in which Quebec's French-speaking citizenry received them, causing New York Timesman John MacCormac to observe: "Canadian crowds are given to taking their pleasures silently, if not sadly." But the farther west Their Majesties went on their 26-day Canadian trip, the more...
...Whalen stoutly denies there is any likelihood of loss from war. He argues that only 500,000 of his hoped-for visitors are expected from Europe, that the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 succeeded in the face of a war, and that anyhow there is a strong nonwar omen in the fact that foreign exhibitors have not been holding back...
...word auspice, meaning sign or omen, is telescoped from the Latin words avis, bird, and specere, to see. In ancient Rome the appearance and behavior of birds-whether they were eagles, vultures, owls, crows, or ravens, which direction they flew, how they ate grains of corn-determined whether public assemblies should be held, whether armies should attack, whether merchants should be bullish or bearish...
...Good omen of a longer, rougher role. Mrs. L. C. Jacks...
...minded France, the cry was "C'est la guerre!" In Austria and elsewhere in Europe, kneeling peasants gibbered prayers. In Holland, merry celebrants hailed the vast curtains of red, orange, purple, green, blue and white light shifting and shimmering in the northern sky as a happy omen for the delivery of Princess Juliana (see p. 77). In London, which had not seen the aurora borealis since the dire night of a Zeppelin raid during the War, someone, thinking that Windsor Castle was on fire, called the Windsor Fire Department. European telephone exchanges generally were jammed by excited or fearful...