Word: peculiarities
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Moscow last December researching a book we have been writing on the end of the cold war. On Dec. 14, one of Gorbachev's closest aides asked us to convey a message to James Baker, who was due in the Soviet capital the next day. The approach was less peculiar than it may sound. The Soviet Union was disintegrating; its last leader, then 11 days from resigning, was already in limbo. Gorbachev and his loyalists believed that the U.S. embassy had long since become a nest of Yeltsinites and would not be a reliable channel to Baker...
Former Yale University President Benno C. Schmidt Jr. spoke about the role of presidents and trustees in meeting the "peculiar circumstance"--a term he said he preferred to "financial crisis"--facing American universities today...
...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...