Word: uncommonness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...brain," Sacks suggests, is a result of the precision with which most of us can replay music internally; built to seek stimuli, the brain rewards itself for its fidelity with perfect repeats of songs. But for the patients in Sacks' book who suffer musical hallucinations - a related and not uncommon condition in which imaginary music seems to come from an outside source that can't be turned off - the results are often debilitating. One patient, June B., has been subjected to a short, repeating playlist that includes Amazing Grace, the drinking song from La Traviata and "a really dreary version...
...about 15% each year. Many men, like Prince, restore their foreskins to improve sex; circumcision, after all, removes some of the most sensitive cells in the body. Others do it because they feel dry and uncomfortable. Some feel abnormal - though circumcision is customary in the U.S., it is uncommon in most of the rest of the world. Finally, since so many new parents are choosing to leave their baby boys intact, Low says, "I even hear from men that they want to look more like their...
...Puryear is well understood as a man whose art should never be understood too quickly. What he makes are powerfully ambiguous forms, things that almost correspond to familiar realities but not quite, so that they speak in subtle terms to undisclosed locations within ourselves. It's not uncommon to hear him described as one of the most formidable living American artists. Agreed. And if what he makes is also weirdly beautiful, well, sometimes a question mark is the sexiest curve in the world...
...nature of Chinatown economies, which are built almost entirely on cash transactions, tremendously high savings rates and a tradition of financial secretiveness. Few Chinese-American workers in New York City's several Chinatowns will reveal how much they really make. At the same time, it is not uncommon to see waiters and dishwashers among other so called menial workers who are capable of paying for cars, plunking down large initial premiums for insurance policies or making sizable down payments on homes or apartments - in cash. The banks of Chinatown centered in Canal Street in Manhattan have combined deposits...
...city of Barinas, the state capital, has long been defined by the vast, rough-and-tumble plains, or llanos, and their cattle culture, that encircle it. Much of the city's gossip, however, revolves around the Chavez clan. It's not uncommon to see red graffiti splashed across street walls in Barinas warning, "If they try to kill Chavez, death to the oligarchy." And anecdotes about young Hugo, accurate or not, flow freely...