Word: thumps
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Then the sirens shrieked. "The stretcher party began to carry the body down from the mound. There was a heavy thump as a big bomb fell somewhere...
...Senate made the transition from old to new with little more ceremony than the thump-thump of Vice President John Garner's ivory gavel. It had met in the morning to establish a record of 367 days in session, recessed for 15 minutes, then flowed augustly on. As Garner, stammering occasionally and looking lonely and uncomfortable in his striped trousers and cutaway coat, put the Senate through its routine opening paces, the atmosphere was staid and grave. Senators elected and re-elected in November filed up to the rostrum in groups of four to be sworn in, each escorted...
...evidence, he goes to the great apes, nearest kin to man. They show - and inherit - wide differences of personality. Gorillas like to thump their chests. Both gorillas and chimpanzees do crude dances and rhythmic poundings, but orangs and gibbons do not. By people who have studied them closely, gibbons are usually described as shy, gentle, amiable, affectionate. Gorillas are reserved, deliberate, discreet. Chimpanzees are lively, responsive, emotionally unstable. These temperamental differences are obviously not due to variations in the natural habitat, for animals born in captivity manifest them. Moreover, at this stage, differences between individual members of the same species...
That noisy part of a symphony orchestra where big men thump, rumble, tinkle and crash away at drums, gongs, cymbals and triangles is known as the battery, or percussion section. Orchestra players call it the "kitchen." Like pepper in soup, the kitchen's function is usually to supply seasoning for the climaxes of a symphony. Only once in a blue moon, as in the cannon shots of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, does the kitchen get a chance to put on a solo...
...Almost at the same moment as we bombed I felt a thump, and the aircraft lurched to the right. A pom-pom shell had gone through the starboard wing. Then another shell hit the same wing between the fuselage and the engine. They were firing pretty well at point-blank range. It was all over in a few seconds. The navigator called out. 'O.K. finish.' Then we turned away...