Word: tattler
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...little whisper-catcher is an inconspicuous cylinder which can be concealed in a pocket and raised to the ear at interesting moments. Inside is a complete battery-powered amplifying system capable of boosting a lovers'-lane murmur into clear-voiced dialogue. Inventor Huth primly suggests that his little tattler will be useful for, among other things, 1) listening to sermons, and 2) helping foxhunters catch the bay of distant hounds...
...people caught in this grade B triangle gives it the look of pathos. He softens contempt for the villain by proving him to be as much an unhappy fool as he is a rascal. When the hero's sister writes a tattling letter, Gilliat balances the tattler's meanness with a compassionate picture of her miserable marriage. Besides endowing his work with warmth and humanity, Director Gilliat knows how to make it move; the hero's hunt through London for his wife is a series of hairbreadth misses, played at the galloping pace of a horse opera...
Canada (and the U.S. and Britain) had learned about the plot months ago, presumably from some tattler involved in it. The Mounties had not moved immediately, for several reasons. For one thing, evidence had to be complete. Furthermore, delay enlarged the catch. Most important, perhaps, were diplomatic considerations that smelled strongly of appeasement: premature disclosure of the plot might have meant a rupture with the Soviet Union just as UNO was gathering for its first meeting...
...world's most successful tattler, McKelway does more than tattle. His aching concern is the "Legacy of an Ex-Hoofer"-the effect of Winchellism on the standards of the press. When Winchell began gossiping in 1924 for the late scatological tabloid Evening Graphic, no U. S. paper hawked rumors about the marital relations of public figures until they turned up in divorce courts. For 16 years gossip columny spread until even the staid New York Times whispered that it heard from friends of a son of the President that he was going to be divorced. "The Graphic...
...remained for the nation's No. i tattler, Friend Winchell, to reveal Policeman Hoover's only romance. Said Winchell: "The only girl he really adores and sends gifts to is a famous movie star who makes more in a fortnight than he does in a year...