Word: parroting
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...little experience. Now it seems like just a modest little evening at home, compared to all the Flaming Youth's that have lately tried to set the screen on fire. In order to put novelty into it, the heroine is made to say, with the pertinacity of a parrot, "I'm a good girl; I expect a man to make one mistake-but only one." Betty Compson, looking her prettiest, is probably so well-behaved because the picture was directed by her future husband, James Cruze. The story of this girl, angling for a husband among various flirtatious...
...Shaw: "In an address before the English Association in London, I deplored what I characterized as the increasing use of 'parrot talk' and the 'mumble mumble' of hostesses. I pointed out that parrots learn words and phrases distinctly at first, but gradually modify them so that they eventually become unintelligible to all except those who hear the parrots speak daily. 'What you ought to aim at,' said I, 'is to speak English that will be intelligible to foreigners. It is not sufficient for us to be intelligible to one another...
This is what the new plan tries, in fact, to do. It is meant to obviate the parrot-like acquisition of facts and the repetition of them upon a blue-book. It places a premium on individual thought, and on a more general reading. It gives the advantage to the man who knows where a large mass of information can be found easily, rather than to the man who has practically memorized a smaller mass...
...Talking Parrot. The captious critics could not say as cruel things about these three acts, called a play, as the poor audience thought. The "talking parrot" is, like the play, dumb as a wooden Indian...
...features, without regard to the medium used for its expression. The movement of educational opinion away from former methods of studying by rote has helped to foster this abstract and general process of assimilation. In theory, the movement has been a good one since it was hitherto possible to parrot the word of the text with no knowledge of the lesson itself. But there are also distinct disadvantages which have led to a more careless interpretation of the subject matter involved...