Word: scour
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...designed and built, they can slow beach erosion. Nonetheless, most are ineffective in the long run and can actually exacerbate damage. A seawall, for example, may protect threatened property behind it, but it often hastens the retreat of the beach in front as waves dash against the wall and scour away sand. Louis Sodano, mayor of Monmouth Beach, N.J., knows the process firsthand. "When I moved here 28 years ago, you could walk the whole beach," he remembers. "Now the waves slap against the wall. We've lost 100 ft. of beach in the past 28 years...
Some of the major institutional investors scour the world for stock bargains. One who has been roundly rewarded at that game is Peter Lynch, the aggressive manager of the wildly successful Fidelity Magellan Fund (assets: $7 billion), which last year notched up 43.1% growth. Lynch is widely known for his willingness to pick a foreign concern as an investment as readily as a domestic firm. He casts afield to West Germany, the Netherlands and even Finland for his choices...
Another exercise was carried out on an American missile-firing range in Germany. Some shepherds recruited by Soviet military-intelligence agents were used to scour the range looking for components of the fired missiles. The shepherds were told by their GRU directors to collect every piece of metal they could find. The GRU was not interested in warheads as such, but in elements of the guidance system that experts in Moscow were able to use to improve their equivalent missiles. Take the Soviet Strela-2 antiaircraft missile -- it's an exact copy of the American Redeye. Take...
...scours are diarrhea. "I had some scour stopper in a bucket, but it was too late." Chester Hickle wandered back in, recalling a violent time, years ago, when a "man as innocent as you or me was over there in the cafe eating a bowl of soup or chili and they just shot him off the stool...
Most people who struggle for stardom live in New York or California. Even the giddiest know they have little chance of being discovered in a drugstore in Manhattan, Kans., or a restaurant in Los Angeles, Texas. They scour the trade newspapers for notices of auditions. The more fortunate have union memberships that get them past guarded doors. The rest try to fib their way in or, if less bold, wait for "open calls." Known as "cattle calls," they may be publicity stunts. But for an unknown, they may be the only hope...