Word: pile
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...insist and insist again, by Vague Generalities. We abhor V.G.'s, we skim right past them, we start wondering what kind 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...
...Leykis of Los Angeles prefers more dramatic measures. When singer Cat Stevens expressed support of the Ayatullah Khomeini's death threat against author Salman Rushdie, Leykis donned a hard hat and crushed a pile of Stevens' records with a steamroller...
...Moscow. Speeding along the boulevards of the Soviet capital, he telephones the Foreign Ministry for a summary of international news. By the time he arrives at the pinnacled Stalinist skyscraper in Smolensky Square just before 9 a.m., he has been briefed on events and can plunge immediately into the pile of diplomatic cables and documents awaiting him in his seventh-floor office...
...Washington standards, a little strange. First, there is the uniform draped with gold braid he insists on wearing. Before he became famous, it prompted people at airports to pile him with baggage and ask what time the flight was leaving. Then there is the big, clunky hearing aid that he takes out and fusses with right in the middle of a conversation, as if it were a pipe, and the canvas tote he uses as a briefcase, and his habit of loudly cracking his knuckles. On top of that there are the Old Testament beard and the preacher's voice...