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 a 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 doesn't know the material, or hasn't thought carefully, or any of that folly. They simply make tedious reading. "Locke is a transitional figure." "The whole thing boils down to human rights...
Artful Equivocations are even worse; lynx-eyed sly little rascals that we are, we see right through them. (Up to Exam No. 40. Then our lynx eyelids 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 twentieth century has never recoverd from the effects of Marx and Freud" (V.G.); "but whether this is a good thing or a bad is difficult to say" (A.E.). Now one such might be droll enough...
...sprightly, often fanciful mysteries for more than half a century. The "ex-bobby," as he coyly calls himself, reappears in an umpteenth adventure, Appleby and the Ospreys (Dodd Mead; 185 pages; $15.95), to investigate the murder of a dotty peer struck down in the library of his ancestral country pile. There is not much out of the ordinary in either the premise or the solution, but Innes' plot prestidigitation is as deft as ever, and his celebrated sense of humor is in full flood, whether sketching a social-climbing mother or recounting a literal manifestation of bats in the belfry...
...carries a hand- held stock monitor at all times and studies charts and newsletters every night: "The astute investor can beat money managers. They are human. They panic, become euphoric or get emotional just like all of us." At 32, Solomon has accumulated a five-figure profit pile...
...four days of testimony, North had accumulated a foot-high pile of telegrams of support (GOD BLESS YOU, GOOD LUCK AGAINST THOSE ILL-BRED HYENAS). Dozens of floral bouquets were delivered to the Norths on Capitol Hill...