Word: overwrought
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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...Major-General O'Ryan's order? A large group of officers of the Twelfth tendered their resignations, because they felt that they had been insulted. This act was startling and spectacular in the extreme; for its immediate cause was insignificant. It revealed the presence of strong feeling and overwrought nerves--a sort of bursting charge that needed only a slight detonation to set it off. The situation is very much as though two men should come to harsh blows because one had accidentally broken the point of the other's pencil. In both cases a mere trifle would have resulted...
...characteristic touchiness that usually accompanies inadequacy. For several months they have been in the presence of a situation that they had not been trained to meet, and were consequently incapable of meeting. The problem has been too much for them. The result has been demoralization; their nerves have been overwrought and their perspective ruined...