Word: vain
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...steady growth of tipping is not simply an extension of rising prices. At a time when material abundance is shared in by more and more people, the real feeling of luxury is increasingly based not on goods but on service. Tipping seeks to buy that feeling -usually in vain. In crowded restaurants, in huge, barracks-like apartment buildings, at the mercy of deliverymen or repairmen, in dozens of other situations that make the individual powerless, he seeks feebly to reassert himself through tipping...
...tired of hearing alleged leaders scoff at a balanced budget." Putting aside his prepared text for a moment, he snapped angrily: "Is it so wicked to show some respect for the pioneer qualities of thrift and energy? . . . I believe deeply that continuing deficit spending is immoral . . . I look in vain, and with deep concern, for fiscal responsibility today in public affairs...
...Merkle was finally arrested, and committed suicide before he could be tried. But Trujillo went on to become boss of the Dominican armed forces, a position he used to make himself President in 1930. "God & Trujillo." No absolute ruler-not even France's Sun King-was more foppishly vain. Applying his own version of droit du seigneur, Trujillo took three wives, countless mistresses. Scattered about his peanut-sized fief were twelve palaces and ranches at which a full staff of servants faithfully prepared every meal every day just in case the master dropped in. At each mansion, Trujillo kept...
...Europe there were no illusions at all. William Randolph Hearst Jr., setting out on one of his journalistic junkets, sensed a "European atmosphere of doubt about the wisdom of the trip and misgivings about its outcome." And the French press was plainly not enthusiastic. "It would be vain to hope." editorialized Paris' Le Monde, "that the discussion magically ends the differences . . . between France...
...that if I see one more sentence of the "evaluating conceptologically valid methodologies in the light of historical analysis, on the one hand as it were, and on the other, in meshing frames of reference, so to speak" variety, then I shall take the name of Talcott Parsons in vain...