Word: snappishness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This week the publication of a revised and expanded version of his 1956 book, The Listener's Musical Companion, shows that Haggin, at 66, is as snappish as ever.* "Accepted opinion finds greatness in every note set down on paper by a great composer like Bach or Mozart," he writes. "I hear in some works dull products of a routine exercise of expert craftsmanship. Accepted opinion holds some symphonies and concertos of Brahms to be works of tremendous profundity; I hear in them only the pretension to profundity." Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Mussorgsky rank higher with Haggin than with most...
Demand for Involvement. One of the main features of his administration, from top to bottom, is the demand for involvement. Often he telephones city agencies without identifying himself and, if the voice on the other end is rude or indifferent, administers a mayoral dressing down. He can be snappish and imperious, exclaiming "I am the mayor!" or "Didn't you come prepared?" His disdain for established procedure puts down bureaucrats and raises hackles, but it gets things done; when he found that it would take months to appropriate a few thousand dollars to install fire-hydrant sprinklers in slum...
...entirely of rebukes and insults? The result is the Wolfe Publishing Co.'s Insult Dictionary, subtitled, "How to Be Abusive in Five Languages," which has already sold some 50,000 copies across the Atlantic, promises to sell thousands more in its forthcoming U.S. edition. With 127 pages of snappish asperities in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, the Insult Dictionary provides useful tips for conversations with surly cab drivers, arrogant bank tellers, clumsy hairdressers, nose-picking grocers and road hogs...
...only did the conversation insult Awori, but it could all too easily be construed as intimidation, aimed at restricting political activism. At a time when political dialogue has been dampened by the Administration's snappish replies to responsible critics, it is especially disturbing that the FBI now seems to consider criticism of the government and association with "leftist" (not communist) groups as undesirable and subversive action worthy of investigation...
...Preminger keeps all of them interesting for at least two of the three hours spent In Harm's Way. At one moment he shrewdly plays the grimness of war against the undeniable glamour of it, next diverts the flow of sentimental clichés into a vein of snappish humor. "I'd enjoy meeting your son," says Meredith. "Naw-you wouldn't," grumbles Wayne, eying the lad across a messroom with eloquent distaste. Other scenes crackle comfortably: O'Neal cravenly having his backbone slapped into shape in the men's washup; Andrews placidly playing croquet...