Word: thumbing
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...pudgy face of James Caesar Petrillo* was wreathed in smiles. The boss of A.F. of L. Musicians' Union strode through his big office high in Manhattan's General Electric Building, sat down to thumb happily through a neat nine-page contract. His guests-officers of the nation's record companies-were glum...
...only three, none of which suggests the fact, nimbly demonstrated in shows like Top Hat, that Astaire's dancing at its best can be a pure, heart-lifting delight. His latest partner, Joan Leslie, imparts the double impression in their dance numbers that she is hanging onto his thumb and that she is doing remarkably well in view of the fact that she is not Fred Astaire. At less strenuous moments Cinemactress Leslie is so nice to look at that her feet are the last thing anybody is likely to notice...
MURDER RENTS A ROOM - Sara Elizabeth Mason- Crime Club ($2). A Yankee boarder at a down-at-heel Alabama plantation helps a slow but sure Southern sheriff unriddle two murders that disrupt the peace of a poor, proud family. Crime, romance, authentic Southern atmosphere and rule-of-thumb detecting are satisfac torily mixed...
...Lice Throwers" specialized in vermin. Every Saturday night they would hunt for "the biggest specimens." For twelve super-lice, the club paid one mark. On Sunday morning each member lined up for inspection holding a prize louse between finger and thumb. As the Kommandoführer marched down the ranks, members saluted smartly, thereby snapping the "live dose of itch" in his direction. After endless practice on an old overcoat, the prisoners could hit the Kommandoführer "below the belt" once in three tries...
...from South Bend, Ind., invariably followed. Soon scores of weepers had been touched off, were brusquely ordered to restrain themselves until a more critical moment. Once, at dinner, "Mrs. Dilling suddenly started to sing a mildly ribald song about a young lady and her fiance. Later she stuck her thumb into the air, 'snatched' at [it] with her left hand and made it 'disappear.' She laughed hysterically while she pinched her left...