Word: snappishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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HARP by John Gregory Dunne (Simon & Schuster; $18.95). Novelist Dunne (True Confessions) fesses up that his own barbed style and snappish instincts have roots in an immigrant Irish heritage in which he learned that writing well is the best revenge...
...ambiguous dawn -- large cars and vans. The crusaders of Operation Rescue do not know where they are going, but they are prepared for long drives. Organizers line up the carloads to be given maps as they peel off out of the lot. Taut nerves make the leaders snappish as they scurry about, pausing in little clots of prayer, then bustling to their tasks. Their language is semimilitary, befitting such constant readers of the Book of Exodus. These are churchgoing, middle-class couples, uneasy in the shabby clothes they have put on for prison service later...
...dismal career as a writer of travel books for people who hate traveling; with the dubious consolations of his own family, a sister and two brothers who are as joylessly guarded and compulsive in their behavior as he is; and, of course, the excellent but increasingly (and understandably) snappish company of Edward...
...Even his response to Bush's remark about the six-minute walkout was deft under pressure. "I think you'll agree," he said after a few seconds, "that your qualifications for President . . . ((are)) more important than what you just referred to." Only with his abrupt ending did Rather appear snappish and rude...
Koch rarely asks that question anymore. Midway through the third term he won in 1985 with a 76% landslide, the mayor appears battered and snappish as he struggles to maintain his uncertain hold on a turbulent and troubled city. Like Ronald Reagan, Koch is a master showman who finds that he can no longer dazzle his audience. His woes are such that when he was asked to lead a delegation this month to observe progress toward peace in Nicaragua, it offered a pleasant change from New York City...