Word: scratch
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Helping to expose the gambling machines that were milking Newark in the early 40's was exciting: "I had to ride back and forth on the train, look for men who were reading scratch sheets, and try to find out from them where the gamblers operated. I followed a heavy bettor to the gaming house, counted how many times he rang the bell, and ten minutes later did the same. After playing craps for a while on the newspaper's money, I left by telling them an ulcer was acting up. But all this isn't unusual. Most reporters...
...Damn near had to stand on their heads, I guess," said Ramsey County (St. Paul) Auditor Eugene A. Monick. At many polling places where machines were not used, the supply of ballots ran out. Some voters stood in line for hours, finally wrote their choice on scratch paper initialed by the election judges...
...Scratch Catcher. General Motors Corp. showed off an electric instrument which can detect scratches as small as one millionth of an inch. The "Surfagage" can be used in machine shops and factories to record the surface roughness of an automotive piston, crankshaft, gear tooth or any other part with a machined, ground, honed or lapped surface...
...almost imperceptibly, the merchants' movements assume a nervous, nearly furtive air. They start at the slightest sound--the clank of hoof on manhole, the raccous grate of a newly varnished sash, the quick scratch of a mongoose at a loose floorboard...
...truth imposes on any commonplace telling. Before the war, Frank Davison had run a small airport in Cheshire, England. He married Ann, a licensed pilot, soon after she went to work for him. The war put the Davisons' airport out of business, and they had to start from scratch at something new. As Ann tells it, the Davison saga was a succession of failures strung on a theme of hard luck. They tried gravel quarrying, farming, raising purebred goats. When Ann said, "You know, Frank, I could do with some real gut stirring," her husband said, "So could...