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Word: smartass (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
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Usage:

...show is under way, he paces the stage hungrily, a cigarette dangling from his knuckles and venom dripping from his toothy grin. Liberals are "Pablum pukers"; the current presidential candidates are "baboons." Guests or audience members who rile him are fair game for ripostes like "Don't be a smartass with me, punk," or an escort out the door. He ignites the crowd -- mostly young males who appear to be bused in from the stands of some local sports arena -- into bursts of cheering, hoots of derision or their favorite chant: "Mort! . . . Mort! . . . Mort...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Morton Downey Jr. The Pit Bull of Talk-Show Hosts | 1/4/1988 | See Source »

...minor characters, although at first they seem like B-movie stereotypes, all develop individual personalities of their own, a rarity in a horror film. The group of Marines includes Vasquez, the Hispanic tough macho lesbian, who ends up sacrificing herself for the rest of the crew; Hodgson, a dumb, smartass soldier whose terrified vulnerability in the face of the aliens makes him human after all; and a mean drill sargeant with a dry wit who has one of the film's greatest lines. Cameron manages to work in just enough comic relief to keep the audience from breaking down under...

Author: By Maia E. Harris, | Title: A Great Scare | 7/25/1986 | See Source »

...Pandora, who seems to represent both the character from Greek mythology and contemporary Western consciousness. Through the magic of time travel, Pandora converses with a Kesh woman librarian. These enlightened people routinely throw away books and documents. As the dialogue continues, Pandora grows frustrated. "I never did like smartass utopians," she says. "People who have the answers are boring, niece. Boring, boring, boring." She has a point. But Stone Telling's story, with Le Guin's inspired assistance, is enchanting enough to rise above...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: History of an Imagined World Always Coming Home | 10/14/1985 | See Source »

...camps has less to do with strategy than with wings: Jackson wants his own airplane during the campaign. The candidate's relations with blacks were further jolted when Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, upset by the Mondale staffs resistance to outside advice, said the campaign was run by "smartass white boys who think they know...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Party Time in Dallas | 8/27/1984 | See Source »

...three best newspapers in the country, the Post got its reputation while inviting controversy. Watergate gave it a success it has since labored to match and an arrogance when challenged that compounds its difficulties. Back in 1978 Alistair Cooke defined the malady: "The Post is suffering from radiation, or smartass, sickness after overlong exposure to Nixon & Co." The result has been some notable missteps, such as a leering and erroneous account of Zbigniew Brzezinski's sexual behavior and a Pulitzer-prizewinning story that proved to be a phony. So when the Carters challenged the bugging item and demanded...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Newswatch: Going Eyeball to Eyeball - and Blinking | 11/2/1981 | See Source »

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