Word: phrased
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...this came the baleful news that in the last week of last year the paper franc circulation rose by 1,200,000,000 francs, bringing the total up to 39,114,000,000. This was explained by the euphemistic phrase, "end-of-year settlement." It was thought possible, however, that the Banque de France would be forced eventually to raise the banknote circulation over 41,000,000,000, the present authorized figure. This would immediately imperil the gold ratio of 25% and cause a further period of depreciation...
...book written completely in an unknown tongue tends somewhat to lack interest. The average American will go docilely to listen to a play in Russian or Italian or French, though the nicer turns of phrase leave him relatively cold. There are always redeeming features. There are the coiling hands of Duse. There is the highly cultivated naturalness of the Moscow players. There are the snakes and daggers and dark shadows of the Grand Guignol...
Though French, wielded by such masters of the interposed Gallicism as W. J. Locke, Booth Tarkington, Leonard Merrick, is the most insidious invader of the English novel, the other tongues are not backward in their occasional donation of a cryptic phrase. Villains are at almost any moment likely to break out with a brisk donner-wetter. What would a volume by Fannie Hurst be thought of without an occasional lapse into some good expressive Yiddish? Haunch, Paunch and Jowl is plentifully spattered with the colorfully Hebraic...
...Grand Duke Russian, a Sheik Arabic, a waiter French. It keeps you from losing sight of the environment in which the events narrated take place. But an even more fundamental reason is that we like to be able to convince ourselves of familiarity with the unfamiliar. The French phrase becomes a mark of confidence in us and in the extent of our linguistics?particularly if it is discreetly translated in the next sentence. It is just one more of those little touches that make us feel fifty per cent cleverer than anyone else thinks...
...Charity begins at home" is at best an ambiguous phrase. Far clearer and far more true is it that realization exists only at home. The success of all drives for charity depends on the appeal, and it is perhaps for lack of a sufficient appeal that today, with only one more day to go, the Student Friendship Drive hangs between success and failure...