Word: priggishness
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...person, he likes to use much stiff-legged literarities as "flavicomous, ecology, otiose," speaks of people "occluding" the doorway. But his wistful better nature comes to the fore in his characters' speeches, which are always from the heart. Says Rosamund: "One has such a horror of being either priggish or sentimental. They call me sentimental in my books, but I'm not really." Says Clive: "Me! Oh, I'm just a rather affectionate sort of ass." Author Deeping can be alarmingly severe with people he doesn't like, such as Norah, Rosamund's older sister...
Alain was blond, handsome, a little priggish, a pampered only son. He bought Saha at a cat show, raised her for three years, delighted in her quiet, affectionate tricks. He had a few misgivings when he married Camille, who was modern, athletic, informed, impulsive, changeable as a mountain stream. But he lost them during their honeymoon and only began to harbor a secret resentment at Camille's plans for remaking their house. While it was being done over they lived on the ninth floor of a Paris apartment, to which Alain soon found an excuse for bringing...
While most novelists attempt to develop character, few have realized how effectively the principal actor can tell about himself in the third person. Biographies, even though fictitious, seem to lack vitality and autobiographies, when the narrator is of little consequence in world affairs, are invariably priggish. Percy Marks has happily hit upon a working solution of this dilemma in "A Tree Grown Straight" and, incidentally, has written the best analysis of the problems of our generation...
...Cleopatra is a gauge, the Romans were still somewhat "nouveau riche." They were also provincial, priggish as regards the women, crude as regards the men. On the other hand the Egyptians portrayed here are scarcely subtle. The humor in "Cleopatra" is sometimes excellent, but one never knows whether it was intended, and, therefore, whether to give the producer the credit or not. It would have been wiser to have less platinum blondes in the supporting cast, they seem a trifle anachronous when they predominate in the Egyptian population. Do not expect history, and go when feeling a little mellow...
...plan such as this is open to just condemnation by those idealistic individuals who denounce any system of honors, or even of grading, on the grounds that it obscures the true objects of education in a search for glory. General honors are obviously sought by those priggish souls who value a "cum" solely for vanity's sake, rather than for any real initiative and genuine scholarship which such recognition ought certainly to represent. Moreover, the similar terminology of the degree "cum laude" in General Studies, and of that in Special Studies does not offer an adequate or equitable initiative requisite...