Word: sputters
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...little, if any, worse than before. Doubtless he would try to draw the maximum attention away from Tobruk with handsome paragraphs about his conversations with President Roosevelt, a Second Front, other future possibilities. But there were more realistic reasons why Parliament's candle of criticism was likely to sputter and die before the Prime Minister's breath...
...grubbing around in lower Manhattan. Here you have six men from a German U-boat battling through the wheat fields of Canada. There's plenty of action; lots of dialogue (though some of it sounds more like a made-on-purpose speech than anything a tobacco-chewing Canuck might sputter); and such fifth-magnitude twinklers as Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, and Raymond Massey perfume the bill. The only trouble is, there's no suspense. The audience knows that the six are marked men. All it has to do is sit back and gloat while six mouthsful of dust are bitten...
...minutes before 11 a.m. the sputter of motorcycles outside drowned the soft music within the little church. First through the door came Mr. Roosevelt on the arm of his military aide, Major General Edwin ("Pa") Watson, his big hand gripping an ivory-headed walking stick. Then came Mrs. Roosevelt and the President's naval aide, Captain John R. Beardall; Miss Malvina Thompson, Mrs. Roosevelt's secretary; Lord and Lady Halifax...
...began writing a history of the Near East, found such disagreement among scholars over the origins of Christianity that he "was compelled to devote precious years to the investigation of the New Testament for myself." Historian Olmstead's findings made most of his Bib Lit colleagues sputter. They think the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) give the truest picture of Christ's life, assign a much later date to St. John's Gospel. Dr. Olmstead said roundly that it was the earliest, written only a few years after the Crucifixion, and by far the most reliable...
...while the great St. Austin preached, So air grew gold with angels' wings, A beggar scratched because he itched; I perish to amend these things, And while in blazing shirt I stand, Priest jostles knave in the dark street, Better to see my burning hand Fall off, and sputter at my feet...