Word: pluckings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Though state and local taxes will quickly be poured back into the economy in labor and material costs, they nonetheless pluck dollars away from middle-income consumers-at a time when consumer confidence seems at last to be flowering. Whether it will continue to bloom in the shadow of these fiscal increases is a matter of deep concern among economy watchers in and out of the Administration...
...dolls, however, are those that perform grown-up tasks. Bizzie Lizzie pushes a carpet sweeper, dusts and irons. Busy Becky the Handi Helper, programmed in much the same way, comes with twelve housekeeping accessories. Shoppin' Sheryl pushes a shopping cart, reaches out with a magnetized "Magic Hand" to pluck items off shelves, then pays at what is labeled a Motorized CheckOut Counter after the sale is rung up on a Ringing Cash Register. Surely an Overdrawn Bank Account is in the works somewhere...
Obviously then, more is needed here than the simple luck and pluck that, as legend has it, was enough to save all those musicals in the thirties. I tend to doubt that, as Esquire would have us believe, the forties were the last time America was happy. We had begun whistling in the dark a good bit earlier than that. Which means that if On the Town is to be revived it must be revived with all of its original complexities and simplicities intact. O-K, I'll grant you it's a helluva task, but then New York...
...Italians' scientific approach left many French farmers unmoved. "You never know why you find truffles at the foot of this tree and not at the foot of that one," said one. "It happens, by chance, that you can pluck a small fortune [at the current rate of about $20 per lb. wholesale]. But you must at least know some of the old secrets. For example, they say that by working the soil around the oaks under the March moon on the right day you get truffles that are well rounded. The truffle is a passion, not a culture...
Puerto Rican businessmen now look to the island's government to pluck them from the economic slough. Officers of the hotel association want a wage-price freeze in the tourist industry. Others in the tourist business demand that more public money be spent on promotion and advertising, even at the expense of public education. Casino owners are pressing the government to allow slot machines and games like baccarat, which are presently banned. The real answer, of course, lies in a return to the pre-boom formula of courteous treatment and reasonable prices...