Word: secondhand
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...John de Piano Carpini across Central Asia in 1245-47. Friar Carpini himself wrote a well-known account of his trip in 1247, but the version in Witten's book was transcribed by another Franciscan friar, identified only as C. de Bridia, who had heard of the expedition secondhand...
This is not just a matter of esthetics. Auto salesmen have long known that the best way to hook a customer is to open the door of a new car and let him smell it (some companies already produce aerosol bombs that give secondhand cars that new-car atmosphere). The sharpest prod to coffee sales is the smell of freshly ground beans. A hotel has ordered spray cans full of roast-beef aroma to step up banquet-hall trade; an artificial-flower company is spraying its false blooms with essence of the natural thing. Now, sniff this page. Catch that...
...something was done. Old toilet bowls moved onto patios and sprouted flowers; louvered windows, coach lamps and marble fireplaces became standard. An enterprising young real estate man bought up some houses, ripped the plaster down to the bare brick, added odds and ends picked up at demolition sites and secondhand stores and resold his properties at profits handsome enough to make him a millionaire...
...flew in from Moscow. One was reportedly a general, and all seemed to have in mind a lengthy stay. Not so. Jomo called in the Soviet ambassador, told him to send back his tanks, guns and technicians. Later he explained to a press conference: "All the arms are old, secondhand, and would be of no use to the modern army of Kenya...
...cars-some from Europeans desperately attempting repairs. They shouldn't have bothered. In twelve years, no non-African has ever won, and the record may forever be intact. Last week's winners came close to denting it: two Sikh brothers named Joginder and Jaswant Singh, in their secondhand Swedish Volvo with 50,000 miles on the odometer. Of course, they have lived all their lives in Nairobi. When they coasted cozily home, the swinging Singhs were hoisted onto the roof of their car and paraded through the streets. It was the worst hazard they had faced...