Word: vainly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Before the discovery of that anonymous letter, conventional wisdom had it that the cornerstone had been placed in the northeast corner of the White House, since it was Masonic practice to choose that corner. In a 1901 renovation, paint was scraped from a few stones in a vain effort to locate an inscription. Once the Charleston letter surfaced, interest immediately shifted to the southwest corner of the White House...
...aunt tried to scare them off with a gun, but it wasn't loaded. Institutionalized in a Melbourne orphanage, young Archie was told his family had died in a fire. His minders tried to force his hair straight, breaking comb teeth in his frizzy curls. It was a vain attempt by whites to make an Aboriginal child more like them. It didn't work, and the combs weren't the only casualties...
Although her Harvard teammates could not be with Gyorffy in Sydney, they were with her in spirit, searching in vain for a television that showed her competing...
...novelist who puts himself into his story is either a Postmodernist or uncommonly vain. Vidal is not a Postmodernist, but he probably deserves a place in his chronicle. He knew or met a number of the real, historical people--Eleanor Roosevelt, Joseph Alsop, Tennessee Williams--who move through the pages of The Golden Age. He has been, for the past half-century, an uncommonly public literary figure: a near ubiquitous television guest and, twice, an unsuccessful candidate for elective office. Living well is Vidal's revenge, which he does much of each year at La Rondinaia, his spectacular house...
...hearts ached with hope and then broke with sadness at news of the loss of life of the brave men aboard the Kursk submarine [WORLD, Aug. 28]! We hope they have not died in vain and the leaders of Russia will learn that a loss of face is more acceptable than a terrible and unnecessary loss of life. MAUREEN DUNN Monrovia, Calif...