Word: ripleyisms
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Cartoonist Robert L. ("Believe It or Not") Ripley believed last week that he was about to become the owner of a volcano. He had been negotiating for the purchase of Paricutin, the volcano which poked through the cornfield of Mexican Farmer Dionisio Pulido, on Feb. 20, 1943, and quickly grew into a 1,500-ft. mountain, belching flame, smoke and lava. This week the cartoonist, after delicate and mysterious negotiations, expected to clinch the deal...
During New Year's Eve festivities in Havana, somebody told Ripley that Paricutin was for sale. He already had a gilt telephone, an apartment crammed .with hundreds of statuettes, swords, costumes, paintings, vases and two secretaries-one American, one Chinese. But he did not own a volcano. He wanted Paricutin because: 1) as a boy he had always wanted a volcano; 2) it might fill a spiritual void; 3) it might (because of minerals) prove a good investment...
Skeptics pointed out several difficulties that Ripley might encounter. Farmer Pulido had disappeared. In any case, his title to the volcano was somewhat hazy. Mexican law frowned on foreign landowners and the Mexicans might want to keep their volcano themselves...
...Menjou ("I have never up to the present been a waiter in real life"), H. G. Wells and Billy Rose ("I would rather be labeled 'dwarfish' than not be mentioned in your splendid magazine at all") - Bernard Baruch and Franklin Roosevelt, Walter Winchell, Rudy Vallee, Robert L. Ripley, Harold Ickes, Bing Crosby, Walter Lippmann, Bob Hope, Henry Wallace, William Saroyan, Edgar Bergen, Admiral Nimitz, Ernie Pyle, Salvador Dali, Elmer Davis, Thomas Mann...
Most people have heard that fluorine probably has something to do with keeping teeth healthy. They have read about the happy, cavity-free citizens of Deaf Smith County, Tex., where fluorine exists in judicious quantities in soil and water (TIME, Nov. 10, 1941). They have seen movies of Ripley, Ont., which has so much natural fluorine that the dentists' chief occupation is holding citizens' mouths open to display their perfect teeth. These demonstrations make laymen wonder why experimental use of fluorine has been limited to a few small-scale ventures...