Word: prosaic
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Vernay-Faunthorpe expedition talks about his trip and shows you pictures of it. His record is a good travelog, wonderfully vivid compared to the lectures which, under the same title, have been delivered since time immemorial as a special treat in U. S. boarding schools on Saturday nights, but prosaic when measured against some of the animal scenes that have been artificially arranged in recent romances of wild countries. Some of Dyott's facts are interesting. Indians never kill ordinary elephants, regarding them as almost sacred because of their capacity for work. They kill only rogue elephants, lonely, vindictive bulls...
...idealists who place the House Plan before unwilling eyes must realize that its success or failure rests on the simple and prosaic custom of eating. Their decisions will be awaited with interest, because it means either regimentation or freedom, and paternalism or "laissez faire". The ultimate disposition of fraternities and clubs, moreover, cannot be solved until more illuminating information is forthcoming as to what the dining halls will actually mean. Until this much-anticipated illumination assumes definite shape, discussion appears to be nothing more than abstract the-orizing, which will conveniently occupy any free afternoon...
Masquerading as ink, paint, olive oil and other prosaic commodities, shipments of high-grade liquor used to proceed to one Alfred E. Norris, Manhattan broker, from one Joel D. Kerper, Philadelphia 'legger. When the U. S. penetrated the shipments' disguises, Broker Norris and 'Legger Kerper were tried in Philadelphia. District, Judge William Huntington Kirkpatrick sentenced the 'Legger to 15 months at Atlanta and a $20,000 fine. Broker Norris was fined $200 on the ground that, though the act of purchasing liquor is not prohibited, yet the act of purchasing aids and abets the prohibited transportation...
Fortnight ago when Manuel Morales, his sister Rita and three friends decided to spend their vacation in Oaxaca hunting for buried treasure near the ruined temples of Teposcolula, friends considered them practical, prosaic. So did Oaxaca state authorities who issued a treasure hunting license with the usual provision that 50% of the findings, if any, should be given to the state...
Having overturned the government, good revolutionists dearly love to overturn the calendar. In 1793 French Republicans, flushed with political success, changed the names of all the months from the prosaic January, February, March to the more descriptive Pluviōse (rainy) Ventōse (windy), Germinal (budding), etc. They divided each month into three "weeks" of ten days each, and dated everything from the First day of the Year 1 (Sept. 22, 1792), the date of the proclamation of the first French Republic. The French Republican calendar lasted nearly 15 years, died a natural death during the reign of Napoleon...