Word: teetotum
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...into Alsop's Fables. In the new palace at Jeddah ("the house that Aramco built"), guarded by blackamoors with gilded scimitars, King Saud of Saudi Arabia entertained 400 dinner guests at once, headed by little Imam Ahmed of Yemen, "who waggles his big, richly turbaned head like a teetotum in a sort of passion of politeness." While the guests drank orange pop, "a court bard, descended straight from the poetic line that sang before Agamemnon at Mycenae . . . recites a long poem in praise of the King and Imam into a deafening loudspeaker system." The King's interpreter, "last...
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