Word: stiff
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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With $12,000 in prize money and the guarantee of at least a briefly successful career at stake, 34 of the world's best young violinists had entered the 10th Queen Elisabeth, the most glamorous of all the music competitions. The stiff preliminaries had winnowed the competitors down to twelve-including four Russians and four Americans. But in the finals, the Russians were the masters of the younger and shakier Americans, whose main virtue was the exuberant individualism of their playing. When the prizes were announced, the Russians took first, second, fourth and ninth; the Americans placed third, fifth...
...trial at all for well-bred Britons to keep a stiff upper lip all the way through Dunkirk, the Blitz and Suez. But through eight straight losses to the U.S. in the Walker Cup-now really, chaps, that was a bit much to ask. Englishmen take their golf seriously; after all, they practically invented the game. Actually, it was the Scots-but surely the Empire still stretches that...
British Shoe, said Clore, had followed what appeared to be a trend away from the pointed-toe, stiletto-heel shoe toward the lower heel and square tip that became briefly popular in the U.S. and on the Continent. But in England hardly anybody bought them, and stiff-uppered British Shoe was left with an inventory estimated to be as high as 200,000 pairs. Clore blamed the loss on British fashion writers, charged them with marching into the square toe at the head of a nonexistent army...
Since its inception, Project West Ford has met with stiff opposition from astronomers all over the world. In 1961 the International Astronomical Union officially expressed its disapproval of the program. Because of West Ford, both the IAU and the National Academy of Sciences have created "watchdog committees" to help scientists appraise space programs that might impede their research...
...What is the value of a classical repertory theater? In Guthrie's view, it offers playgoers the chance to see "American expressions of the human spirit." As for actors: "How can actors develop other than personality cults if they don't measure themselves against the past?" How stiff a standard that is and how long it will take for U.S. actors to measure up to it were swiftly revealed on opening night. Director Guthrie elected to do an uncut Hamlet in modern dress, and he provided some of the eye-catchers that make purists accuse him of being...