Word: pile
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...insist and insist again, by Vague Generalities. We abhor V.G.'s, we skim right past them, we start wondering what king of C to give from the first V.G. we encounter; and as they pile up, we decide C-(Harvard being Harvard, one does not give D's. Consider C- a failure). Why? Not because they are a sign the student does not know the material, or hasn't thought creatively, or any of that folly. They simply make tedious reading. "Locke is a transitional figure." "The whole thing boils down to human rights." Now I ask you, I have...
Artful equivocations are even worse; lynx-eyed sly little rascals that we are, we see right through them. (Up to exam 40. Then our lynz eyes droop, and grading habits relax. Try to get on the bottom of the pile.) Again, it is not that A.E.'s are vicious or ludicrous as such; but in quantity they become sheer madness. Or induce it. "The 20th century has never recovered from the effects of Marx and Freud" (V.G.); "but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is difficult to say." (A.E.) Now one such might be droll enough...
Slowly the train of boxcars rolls to a halt at Kapikule, where Bulgaria becomes Turkey, and a flood of humanity spills out. Many kneel to kiss the ground. Others weep as they unload furniture, suitcases and sacks stuffed with possessions and pile them on the station platform. Military marches and battle cries of the Ottoman Empire blare from loudspeakers. A man shakes his fist at the distant Bulgarian hills and shouts, "Long live Turkey! This is the happiest day of my life...
Herbert traces the elements of a story that, at least in Peary's case, approach tragedy. He was a poor boy from Maine, trained as a civil engineer and desperate, Herbert argues, to pile up successes for his widowed mother to admire. "I must have fame," he wrote...
...Local residents who have grown up in the shadow of the lighthouse are not yet sold on the idea. "They tell us we can't climb the tower anymore because it has cracks in it, but they can pick it up and move it without it crumbling into a pile of bricks," says Carol Dillon. "I can't believe they would take such a risk...