Word: staid
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Imogene Stevens, 24, sloe-eyed Texan who last June jolted staid New Canaan, Conn, by bumping off Seaman Al Kovacs, 19, in an "aura of sex recrimination, beer and window-smashing reprisals" (so said Coroner Theodore E. Steiber), returned from a summer of Army camping with her husband, Major George R. Stevens III. Rumor said that she might seek a change of venue for her impending manslaughter trial because of public prejudice...
Beyond the fence were other barriers. When the foreigners spoke brokenly or had trouble with restaurant menus, some Oswegonians snickered. Once, when a Yugoslav couple bade a visitor goodbye at the bus station and the men kissed each other on the cheek, townfolk watched with open amusement. Staid Oswego (pop. 22,062) was unprepared for such a massive transfusion; it could not help gaping, winking, misunderstanding, resenting...
Publishers kept a keen eye on those long queues of newspaper buyers. More were there to catch up on the racing results, the comics and the gossip columnists (in that order) than were seeking the news of the war and the world. In front of the staid Times, one observer saw buyers tear out the obituary page, throw the rest of the paper away...
...England's Commission on Evangelism had proposed a fiveyear, $800,000-a-year publicity program "to help [convert] Eng land to the Christian faith." It was hardly news to most of them that England - or any other "Christian" country - stood in need of conversion. But, coming from the staid Church of England, the flat statement was a bombshell...
...money on a horse expected to be scratched from a race at Longchamp-hoping that his bet would be returned in new money. (The trick failed.) People with servants redeemed extra money by sending their servants out with extra amounts. Finance Minister René Pleven was cheerful, but the staid old Bank of France considered the whole business a mess...