Word: transient
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...passed, the amendment would guarantee every citizen's right to "habitable and affordable non-transient housing." A total of 61,000 signatures need to be presented to the Massachusetts State Legislature by tomorrow to start the legal process leading to a change in the constitution...
...Transient anxieties also nag at him from reports of snafus at the statue's original dedication. In 1886 it rained on their parade. "If it drizzles," says Wolper, "we all get umbrellas. If it's a hurricane, we go the following evening." At the first ceremony, the signal to drop the French tricolor veil from Liberty's face set guns to booming and crowds to cheering during a speech by New York Senator William Evarts. Wolper's nightmare: the President hits the button to light the statue, but nothing happens. So a $250,000 backup system is in place...
...this country, of course, we don't have a nobility, the idea having been outlawed by the Founding Fathers (who nevertheless insist on being known by capital letters). Human nature and affectation being what they are, we have naturally produced a nobility of our own, somewhat more transient although hardly less worthy than the British kind. Their lordships were created by the Sovereign, ours by Sam Goldwyn. Theirs try to be seen with the Queen, ours with Joan Rivers. What our crowd lacks in gravitas, it makes up in laughs. Nor has it produced a noticeably poorer class of peer...
This pose of respectability is part of the joke, of course. Nothing underscores outrageousness better than a no-nonsense manner. Frazier's method reaches an apotheosis of sorts in the title story. Things begin innocently enough: "In today's fast-moving, transient, rootless society, where people meet and make love and part without ever really touching, the relationship every guy already has with his own mother is too valuable to ignore." In arguing that men should start taking a sexual interest in their moms, Frazier, like any responsible essayist, raises possible objections to his plan: "One problem is that lots...
...discovers the American air to be full of strange odors and foreign languages, especially English. She is part of a typical "Jewish immigrant hegira": first the densely packed tenements of the Lower East Side, later the wide open spaces of the Bronx, where her household is a turnstile of transient relatives. Simon's father plugs along in the shoe-design business and resents the energy and inquisitiveness of his wife and oldest daughter. Kate learns early that men can be a primary cause of pain and guilt...