Word: upmanship
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...birdsong. A flower-filled meadow resounding with the dawn chorus of songbirds is actually a scene of frenzied sexual competition. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at University College London, has pointed out that everything extravagant about human life, from poetry to fast cars, is rooted in sexual one-upmanship...
Officials all over the globe hope that such a frightening specter will sober both countries into backing off their nuclear one-upmanship. But for the moment, each seems determined to match the other, bomb for bomb. After India detonated five nuclear devices two weeks ago, the question was not whether Pakistan would respond but when. At 3:30 p.m. last Thursday, the earth at the Chagai test site shook, then collapsed. Needles on seismic recorders from Australia to Sweden bounced forward to 4.9 on the Richter scale, indicating that an underground explosion with the power of 2 to 12 kilotons...
...Kofi Annan [WORLD, March 9]. In most south Indian dialects, annan means elder brother, someone who is older and definitely wiser. A vintage meaning, perhaps, but it is a deserved honorific for one who stands taller and sees farther than most of us. In these days of shortsighted one-upmanship, it is comforting to know we have such annans to care for us. May I take the liberty of calling the U.N. leader annan just once with the flavor of meaning of my mother tongue? UNNIKRISHNAN K. PANICKAR Kerala, India...
...with the effects of Valedictorian Syndrome, the sense each Harvard student has by the end of high school that he or she has mastered some subject area or skill. Problems arise when these talented individuals convene and butt heads without the proper head gear in contests of one-upmanship. It's dirty subtle fighting, and the administration permits this same scenario to play itself out each fall. That's where first-year drinking comes...
...dinner was characterized by a great amount of listening, respect and a very clear, clear absence of rancor or one upmanship or disagreement," she said...