Word: popular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When spare, grey Herb Prochnow speaks conversationally, his low voice can barely he heard over the humming of the air-conditioning units in the vast First National Bank building. Yet he is one of Chicago's most popular speakers. Besides The Toastmaster's Handbook, he has written The Public Speaker's Treasure Chest, The Speaker's Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms, The Speaker's Treasury of Stories for All Occasions, and 1001 Ways to Improve Your Conversation and Speeches.* Some Prochnow advice: "Do not overemphasize to the listener or reader that the story...
...stories are better known or more poorly documented than that of the death of Adolf Hitler. Popular imagination the world over has been quick to seize on the macabre details of those last days in the bunker in flaming Berlin, where a mad genius cringed in the rain of Allied bombs and felt the walls of his terrible world closing in upon him. The suicide of his scheming henchman Goebbels, the defection of those who fattened on the blood he had spilled, the last-minute marriage with his blowzy mistress Eva Braun, the suicide pact they made together...
...while the ailing Premier directed affairs of state through deputies. The resolute hand that had steered Greece through the last three years was needed in a new crisis. U.S. economic aid was dwindling, the country was in a bitter mood about Cyprus, and Greek Communists were pushing for a popular front. But one night last week, life ebbed from the bedridden Papagos, leaving Greece adrift in a sea of irresolution...
Goodman has written breezily, with a happy choice of similes and popular idoms. Sometimes he relishes phrases which are deliberately pompous, almost Dickensian. When several of his college friends once enjoyed too much of his grandfather's brandy, Charlie lay in bed that night and smiled at the "regurgitory choruses" issuing from the bathroom...
Even closer to the midstream of popular U.S. taste was Long Islander William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), who once noted in hsi diary: "I must paint such pictures as speak at once to the spectator . . . that will be understood in an instant." In paintings such as Banjo Player (opposite), Mount proved he knew his audience. Infused today with the nostalgic glow of yesteryear, they are kept just this side of sentimentalism by Mount's careful craftsmanship and observant eye. In their quiet way, they look good for many years to come...