Word: understandable
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...musical hit Leave It to Me, under the stage name of Alexis Bolan. Given the choice of quitting office or his job, the Prince said: "I am a professional actor," resigned from the Nobility Association. Said his wife: "It is too bad that some members . . . failed to understand that my husband really is serving the interests of loyal Tsarists ... by making a fool of the character he plays...
President Edsel Ford explained his company's traditional aloofness with a 1903 anecdote: "My father inquired of one of the officers of the [A.M.A.] association if it were possible to join this association. ... He was told, I understand, he had best go out and manufacture some motor cars and gain a reputation and prove that he wasn't a fly-by-night...
...tragic actions--Mary Orr, for example, who just "upped" and deserted her husband after twenty years, or the Island wife who jumped into the sea one fine day. It is hard for us to regard these abrupt acts, that come with so little outward warning, as normal. We cannot understand the simplicity of a Thomas King who blows the head off his powerful body after carefully feeding his cows. We make our suicides spectacular...
...Brooklyn judge did not understand why this slight gesture was considered important testimony in a divorce case. Court Interpreter Vincent D'Agrossa volunteered to explain. This case involved an Italian couple, and to Italians the bit of old-world folklore had plenty of meaning. The gesture, said Interpreter D'Agrossa, was "what we call cornuto." It was an ancient custom to cut the spurs off castrated cocks and graft them to the birds' heads, where they grew as horns. Since the horned capon was a strutting definition of sexual inadequacy, its horns became a symbol of cuckoldry...
...elegant, bemonocled French Ambassador feigned not to understand what was meant in the Chamber when all the Deputies without exception jumped to their feet and, encouraged by two eminent Fascist scream-leaders, screamed in frenzied Italian unison : "Tunisia! Tunisia...