Word: semis
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Negroes of the U.S. remained semi-citizens who wanted to be allowed to do their share of working or fighting to keep the U.S. free...
Everything, it seems at first, is in this book; such ghoulish, semi-slang tintypes as "God's image cut in ebony" (for Negro); such beautifully graphic trade terms as the miner's "snow" (for the sifting of earth presaging a cave-in), the ballplayer's "floater" (for a slow ball), the prostitute's "pivot" (for solicitation from a window). Practically all the unmailable words turn up, along with a tremendous set of their variants and embellishments. So does the surrealist language of drug addicts, the high-heeled dialect of perverts, the likable archaisms of lumberjacks (they...
...title, "The Old Ladies" lacks the pizazz of "Hellzapoppin'" and "Arsenic and Old Lace" to draw the crowds. That a play of that name is being produced in a tiny theatre holding at most a hundred people, by a tiny company of hardworking semi-pros, might arouse at most a little sympathetic interest--not enough, however, for a trip into town to look for that theatre at 36 Joy Street (off Beacon Street a block west of the State House.) Only, therefore, the probable truth that "The Old Ladies" is the most gripping play that has appeared on a Boston...
...Jollity Building is a semi-fictional corner of Times Square inhabited by the scum of Broadway. In the pool hall and in Jollity Danceland, which largely support the building, Mr. Liebling is less interested than in the "Indians," the "heels" and the "tenants," who use it for their "promotions." To promote means to cheat anyone "of a dollar, or any fraction or multiple thereof." and the essence of praise in the Jollity Building is, "he has promoted some very smart people." Everyone there is busy promoting everyone else...
...type of program could be safely substituted in daytime for a few of the sadder washboard weepers. From October 1940 to April 1941, Drama & Serial Drama had an average popularity rating of 11.7, with 28% of evening time on the air. Only 1.2 behind in popularity was Classical & Semi-Classical Music at 10.5, but this type of program had only 3.2% of evening air time...