Word: sesquipedalian
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Ariz, county jail. In 1904 he interrupted his law studies at University of Michigan long enough to marry the young Irish widow who managed Flagstaff's weather bureau. In 1912 he was elected to the U. S. Senate, has been there ever since, famous, admired for his fluent sesquipedalian style-the elegant, eloquent Henry Fountain Ashurst. Into wifely anonymity faded the little Irish woman, beloved by the few who knew her kindness...
Record readers settled down to several hours' solid entertainment, for no man in Congress has such a gift for making two long words do the work of one short one. The range of his sesquipedalian verbal achievements spread from masterly Johnsonian periods on the occasion of "Remarks of Senator Ashurst on the Steamship President Grant on Saturday, October 26, 1935. Presenting to Vice President Garner a Pair of Sox to be Worn When He Has an Audience with the Emperor of Japan," to sombre views on mankind's future, viz.: "It is still an open question...
...hippopotamus, which looks like its sesquipedalian name, is actually so called because a Greek traveler thought it resembled a "horse of the river." Like horses, most hippos are kind and gentle, though a few are extremely cruel at times. Ordinarily docile is Rosie, 15-year-old, 3,000-lb. female hippo in Manhattan's Central Park Zoo, who last week gave birth for the first time. Despite zookeepers' precautions, Rosie butted her newly-born unmercifully, refused it food. The baby hippo, a 52-lb. male, was moved to a separate cage, fed goat's milk and cream...
Sixty-three-year-old Henry Fountain Ashurst, U. S. Senator from Arizona, was recuperating in a Washington hospital from a case of shingles. Complained disgruntled Senator Ashurst: "It had ever been my hope, if incapacitated, to suffer from some affliction that might be described by high-sounding sesquipedalian words...
...Gulf Stream in a rowboat to determine the exact date of spring. He has taught Ubangi women to play tiddlywinks on their platter lips. He owns an adjective factory in New Britain, Conn., whence he sallies forth each year, like a vernal Santa Claus, to scatter his sesquipedalian largess to thirstily gaping yokels. These and hundreds of such amiable Munchausenisms have been printed in the U. S. Press about Dexter William Fellows...