Word: pomp
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HARVARD'S Commencement speech--one of the most prestigious annual lecture series in the world--had apparently lost its luster in recent years. The address has been considered an "event" unto itself--separate from the magnificent pomp that marks each Harvard graduation--at least since 1947, when the circumstance was used for the unveiling of the Marshall Plan. A recent string of prominent speakers--exiled Russian writer Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn in 1978, then-West German Chancellor Helmudt Schmidt in 1979, and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1980--bolstered the reputation. But extending similar invitations the following two years...
...land developer and scion of one of the country's most prominent families; both for the first time; in Sarrat, the Philippines. Bitterly disappointed by the 1981 U.S. marriage of their daughter Imee, 27, to a divorced man, the Marcoses compensated this time by laying on the pomp and splendor. Under Imelda's flamboyant direction, an estimated $1.3 million, some of it government funds, was spent on items such as speeding historic restoration work on the northern Luzon city of Sarrat, birthplace of the bride's father; building four "people's halls" in the Sarrat area...
...influence on metropolitan culture, at least superficially, has been great. There is an air, especially in East Los Angeles, of what Mexican Poet Octavio Paz says are his national essences: "delight in decoration, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve." Shop signs, often pictorial, are painted directly and unprofessionally on stucco façades. The slow promenades of customized cars are nationally famous...
...Medical School celebrated its 200th anniversary with a week of pomp and symposia, and the event brought together perhaps the greatest group of medical talent ever assembled at Harvard. Beginning with three doctors lecturing to a handful of students in the basement of Harvard Hall, the Med School has grown into $95 million per year operation with more than 3000 faculty and 700 students...
Perhaps undergraduates wouldn't find all this pomp so distasteful had the University been feeding them for the past week. But meals end with classes, and seniors must stick around for almost two weeks so they can be paraded in front of their applauding ancestors. One junior, who as the offspring of a '58er has been experiencing the ritual from the inside, reports that at the usually stony Freshman. Union the serves are suddenly calling him by his first name (reading it off the colour-coded tag on his lapel) and asking him how large a portion he wants...