Word: petard
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ignatiev's still highly readable study is the new scholarly petard that hoists any lingering myths of white tolerance in antebellum New England. Equally exciting are Ignatiev's observations on 'race' penned as his Afterword viable for another book altogether. 'Race', he notes, not only holds no scientific or biological validity, but continuously devalues itself as a meaningful expression by amalgamating everything from supremacist theory to personal preference. Europe's ethnic divisions, which might have diverted attention from color conflicts, instead disolved into America's melting pot, and left us with the great divide...
...personally in favor of the establishment of a ROTC program at Harvard. It would be fun to watch liberals here being hoisted on their own petard. But I am horrified that the national government has so much influence over Harvard. Liberals ought to be made to draw the proper lesson from this affair: that centralized power is always a threat to liberty...
...famous but never smiling F.O.Matthiessen, the first senior tutor of EliotHouse, lectured on Shakespeare, annoyed that wedidn't know the meaning of "petard." Once, as Ipassed him on a path, he amazed me with a warm andfriendly smile. Two days later, he jumped from thewindow of Boston's Hotel Touraine to his death...