Word: uncommon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...self-parody, beyond the fifth-face-at-Mount-Rushmore pose, there is a heroic essence that Wayne manages to convey. Today, like "war," the word "hero" is usually preceded by a disinfectant: "anti." Not to the Duke. Conflict is made to be won; heroes are created to be the uncommon man sans imperfection. "I stay away from nuances," he says. "From psychoanalyst-couch scenes. Couches are good for one thing only." As Wayne sees film heroism, "Paul Newman would have been a much more important star if he hadn't always tried to be an antihero, to show the human...
When China Altman and George Blakely Rogers married recently in Boston, they accepted the offer of an old friend to be their "paraclete," or special adviser and supporter of their union. Half a dozen lines were written into the Unitarian ceremony, formally requesting the friend to accept his uncommon role. "Many young people no longer look to their parents for assistance and advice," explains China. "To do so is often too emotionally complicated. We look instead to our best friends. To have a friend promise to be the paraclete of your marriage makes all kinds of sense...
Increases in interest rates have usually been tolerated as a necessary evil in the fight against inflation. Last week, after announcing the fifth rise in the prime rate since December, U.S. bankers were greeted by an uncommon backlash. Criticism of the move came not only from the perennial easy-money advocates but from other responsible sources. Their contention was that the bankers have been just too cavalier about the cost of money...
Immigrants to Ireland began to form second and third branches of the Irish soul. It was and is not uncommon for Souths and Norths in any land to diverge on the issue of charm v. hustle. But in Ireland the normal geographical split was widened by the nature of the settlers. In Ulster, these tended to be tough Presbyterian Scotsmen, with little taste for England but less for the Pope. Their role in an island without history was to keep the 17th century's religious acrimony and long-faced industry alive and to form a kind of museum...
...feels. But he cannot tell anybody else what it is really like. Pain cannot even be precisely defined. Lay and medical dictionaries alike offer essentially circular definitions of it as hurt, distress or suffering-pain is pain. Half the medical textbooks say little about it, except for extreme and uncommon forms, and doctors learn correspondingly little about it in medical school. The great British physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington described pain as "the psychical adjunct of an imperative protective reflex." More simply, pain is what the victim perceives in his mind after he has touched a hot stove-and reflexively pulled...