Word: phrasings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...choral group in a rendition of "Dominum Salvum Fac," which is the traditional presidential song because it includes the phrase nostrum presidentae, "our president." The laughter this generated attracted a wandering television crew, which unfortunately missed outon the chance to catch Bok with his baton up. Bokand his assistant maestros had already returned toMassachusetts Hall...
Harvard is, of course, an ingrained part of American lore and legend. The phrase "Harvard man," for instance, has connotations that a century could not erase. But what would the average guy in Middle America gather about the place from a perusal of the coverage of Harvard at its 350th birthday in the print media? And why does the media think he would even care to read the stuff...
...more stories in the same week referring to a power person as clever or, worse, brilliant indicate that the end is near. Soon Mr. Brilliant will be labeled a "loose cannon" and transmute himself into an adviser, the Washington version of self-imposed exile. In business journalism, the phrase "one of the most respected managers in his field" informs knowing readers that envy is unnecessary -- the respected manager is on the way out. Before long, there will be hints that his managerial ferocity is insufficient, and perhaps a profile mentioning that he drinks decaffeinated coffee, collects porcelain miniatures or loves...
...asked a Parisian or a New Yorker in 1886 what sculpture was, the answer (after a short blank stare) would have been: statues. Statuary, to borrow the mordant phrase of Claes Oldenburg many decades later, was "bulls and greeks and lots of nekkid broads." The sculptor of that day was responsible -- as in the age of film, TV and other ways of mass-circulating the visual icon he is not -- for commemorating the dead, illustrating religious myth or dogma and expressing social ideals. The aim and meaning of the work were rarely in doubt. With statues, good or bad, from...
Having one of your own is a phrase with a ring to it, and since the mid- 1960s, when only one privately owned railroad car rolled in the entire country, it is a ring that more than a few people have answered. Railroad slang for privately owned stock is "private varnish," and a magazine by that name is sent to some 3,000 train buffs. The American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners has 157 full and 240 associate members, and 230 cars are registered in Amtrak's Washington headquarters, most of them lavishly furnished and all fully functional...