Word: retort
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George Bernard Shaw once made (or is supposed to have made) a classic retort to Isadora Duncan's eugenic proposal: "Madam, what if our child should have your brain and my body?" Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace has spent much of his working life investigating the implications of G.B.S.'s rude rejoinder...
When the casual observer, having overshot Langdell Hall, lands in someone's back yard and mutters, "It's not much, but it's a roof over your head," the occupants smile and retort: "It doesn't look like much from here, but wait till you get inside." In one corner of a large living room, paneled in something resembling oak, is a sink, a stove and a refrigerator, amounting to what real-estate merchants call a "kitchenette." The bedrooms run off the main room, and the bathroom, which contains, among other things, a shower, is discreetly hidden. The whole place...
...Williams, curvilinear cinema pinup* sued by Argentine Playboy "Macoco" (Martin de Alzaga Unzue) for $35,000-odd (she took his gifts and then ditched him, he complained), made an interesting retort. She had married him once, and living with him was "too dangerous," she protested. She declared that he "used to beat himself up, scratch his face and bite my leg. There was a pretty bad time all around. He would beat his head against the wall. It was difficult to be married to a man like that." Said Señor Macoco, shocked: "I cannot imagine anything more ridiculous...
...stop the atomic war NOW," by Americans United for World Government; "Let's stop feeding inflation," by the N.A.M.; "An appeal to the peoples of the world," by the Rollins College Conference on World Government; the Zionists' "Palestine ... or they perish," the Arabs' retort, "Arabs want peace"; a blurb for Birobidjan, Russia's-"Pearl of the Far East" for Jews; "An open letter to Congress," by Sponsors of Government Action against Cancer; "Shall we help the Communists to crucify Christian Spain?" by the Missouri Knights of Columbus...
Irrepressible Jimmy Doolittle had a retort to that one too: "If delay is the objective, such a suggestion will attain it. If sound, prompt action is the objective, the experience of the Baker Board indicates that you may get something less than wisdom...