Word: penchant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
However, my penchant for the gourmet (and only the gourmet) has baffled my Harvard friends from day one. By an unhappy coincidence, my 18th birthday coincided with the first day of classes freshman year: my mother saved me from dining hall misery by setting up a Fedex account and air-mailing me an apricot pie (to the astonishment of my roommates). This was but the first in a long series of misunderstandings by my friends...
...later became CIA director. He came early in a long line of men who filled high offices alternately in Bechtel and the Federal Government (most notable: George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger). That led to charges of undue influence--by whom on whom was never quite clear. The company's penchant for secrecy didn't help its reputation either. In 1976 the Justice Department charged that Bechtel had gone too far to please Arab clients by blacklisting potential subcontractors who dealt with Israel. Bechtel signed a consent decree promising not to join any Arab boycott of Israel...
After his breakthroughs on wages, Reuther pressed for improved benefits. He had a penchant for slogans, and they often became rallying cries for the union's programs. "Too Old to Work--Too Young to Die" was one, used to negotiate pension plans. "Thirty and Out" was aimed at a contract clause permitting retirement after 30 years of service, regardless of age. "We Live by the Year--We Should Be Paid by the Year" was behind the demand for a guaranteed annual wage. The ultimate bargaining victory was the Supplementary Unemployment Benefit, which now mandates a 95% replacement of wages...
Reviewing his agency's work, one is struck by Burnett's penchant for employing a range of masculine archetypes. Some were designed to appeal to female consumers. With the Jolly Green Giant, he resurrected a pagan harvest god to monumentalize "the bounty of the good earth"--and to sell peas. Years later, with the creation of the Doughboy, Burnett employed a cuddly endomorph to symbolize the friendly bounce of Pillsbury home-baking products. Aiming at male audiences in the '50s, a time when filter cigarettes were viewed as effeminate, Burnett introduced a tough and silent tattooed cowboy on horseback...
...Virtually every detail of Mars' life--including his birthday--is kept a closely guarded corporate secret within Mars Inc., a secretive company. He has reportedly given but one interview in his entire career and that to a candy-industry trade paper in 1966. Yet even Mars' and Hughes' penchant for anonymity pales before that of Basil Zaharoff (1849-1936), a munitions king aptly called the "Mystery Man of Europe." Zaharoff systematically stole or destroyed all records of his youth and early manhood, making snooping into his past impossible. He employed several doubles and never permitted himself to be photographed until...