Word: peculiar
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...Elderfield points out in a catalog essay, Matisse's luck with the critics has always been peculiar. At the outset, part of the tiny modern-art public in Paris thought his work incoherent, ugly. Others, like Gauguin's friend Maurice Denis, praised its absolutist devotion to "painting in itself, the pure act of painting." But there was never a shortage of critics who saw Matisse as a kind of magisterial lightweight. "It is a modiste's taste," wrote the poet Andre Salmon in 1912, "whose love of color equals the love of chiffon...
Still, too much inflammation is probably better than none at all. The latter is the peculiar plight of Brooke Blanton, a 13-year-old Dallas girl who has taught researchers much of what they know about cell adhesion and wound healing. Brooke first came to doctors' attention as an infant, when her umbilicus and teething sores failed to close and became infected. Strangely, Brooke's lesions contained no pus -- the carcasses of millions of white cells that pile up at infection sites -- even though her bloodstream was teeming with infection-fighting white cells, or leukocytes...
...function of this book is not that of a guide to good usage or a & dictionary, though it is a necessary complement to both. Despite its peculiar shortcomings, it remains a sterling reference tool and deserves a bravo!, bravissimo!, well done!, ole! (Sp), bene! (Ital), hear, hear!, aha!; hurrah!; good!, fine!, excellent!, whizzo! (Brit), great!, beautiful!, swell!, good for you!, good enough!, not bad!, now you're talking!; way to go, attaboy!, attababy!, attagirl!, attagal!, good boy!, good girl!; that's the idea!, that's the ticket!; encore!, bis!, take a bow!, three cheers!, one cheer more!, congratulations...
Family values is a peculiar ingredient in this year's campaign. California pollster Mervin Field says, "The public has a limited amount of problem space in their heads . . . If you're at a rally and you're worried about losing your job, you don't care to hear about family values." But the historian Christopher Lasch remarks, "To see the modern world from the point of view of a parent is to see it in the worst possible light." The deeper energy in the values argument arises from that parent's perspective upon the future. It makes them angry...
Every election brings out its own peculiar jargon. Here's a sampling from the 1992 campaign lexicon...