Word: picayunish
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Hotel des Roses, U.N. headquarters in Rhodes, they were faced with a gigantic mural of the original sin: a naked Adam & Eve, the serpent and the apple. A few minutes later, the U.N. mediator, Bible-minded Ralph Bunche, tossed them another allegory. Urging both sides to avoid recriminations and "picayunish" quarrels, he said: "There are many eyes here, and motes can be readily found in them." He also warned "governments not involved" in the negotiations not to meddle. "Just a friendly tip to the British," said one of his aides...
...himself off and tried to look both innocent and unruffled. "There was some talking back and forth when I presented the draft at the Pentagon," he recalled. "When the President goes off and leaves me in charge, I don't have time to pay much attention to little picayunish things...
...good deal of the trouble connected with Washington really isn't his fault. Misguided legend-makers foisted such monstrosities on five generations of Americans as "Father, I cannot tell a lie," and "First in war, first in peace . . ." Those harmless little tidbits are setups for prep school cynics and picayunish parodyists. But unfortunately the well-meaning myth-manglers have escaped their due punishment. Poor old George Washington takes it all, and he's been taking it in varying doses for 150 years. It's a credit to him that he has borne it all so patiently, and that the date...
Itemized Bill. In Kansas City, Mo., a woman sued for divorce, complained that her husband was "disagreeable, irritable, morbid, cool, bitter, jealous, heckling, picayunish, loathsome, insulting, brazen, miserly, gluttonish, temperamental, selfish, contemptuous, inattentive, uncivil and inconsiderate...
...hate to be picayunish in our criticism of your estimable magazine but we can't let pass unnoticed an incidental item which appeared in your issue...