Word: standoffish
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...Congressmen by the bushel while rejecting some other experienced officeholders out of hand. Last week's California primary was probably the most revealing so far. With gubernatorial races in both parties and an anticorruption referendum of unprecedented scope and complexity, Californians seemed to be saying that they are standoffish toward all candidates. At the same time, the voters are enthusiastic about fundamental political reform...
...known popularly as The Princess and the Golden Ball. It is the tale of the repulsive frog who retrieves the little lady's toy from a pond on condition that she take him back to the palace to share her plate and bed. In many modern versions, the standoffish princess eventually kisses the frog, who instantly becomes a handsome, marriageable prince. In the original, the brat smashes the frog against a wall, and the bridegroom springs magically from the breakage. This is obviously not a sentimental story with a moral such as love conquers all. The ancient theme...
Here is a movie that hymns the joys of a woman's subjugation to a man. As the standoffish wife of a rich rancher (George Hamilton), Catherine Crocker (Sarah Miles) runs away from home one day smack into a train robbery. The desperadoes, making off with the loot, take a fancy to Catherine's horse. Since Catherine refuses to dismount, she too is borne off into the wilderness...
...Congressman with a dulling personality. He has followed the Nixon Administration's conservatism but Ohio voters have criticized him more for his high absenteeism in the House. Like Metzenbaum, he is wealthy. Unlike Metzenbaum, however, his name has always been a household word. With crowds, he tends to be standoffish, in sharp contrast to Metzenbaum's easy ways as a campaigner...
Before a reader gets too cozy with Professor Perella's explication of the religio-erotic kiss symbolism in Western culture, it should be noted that not everyone has found mutual labial stimulation appealing. To the Chinese, for example, kissing had revolting associations with cannibalism. Even Dr. Freud seemed standoffish when he observed in his essay, "The Sexual Aberrations," that the lips are composed of mucous membrane and constitute the entrance to the digestive tract...