Word: verb
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...Some preachers have discovered a new verb which seems to have superseded the old ones [such as] agonize . . . follow . . . sacrifice. It is the lovely verb relax." In their restatements, the old biblical admonishments might go: "If any man will come after me, let him relax." Or: "Go ye into all the world and keep down your blood pressure...
...giving a performer a share of a song's profits), hot stoves (open bribes) and other forms of payola were standing operating procedure; a world of concern with P.D. (public domain, the graveyard, or seventh heaven, where tunes land when their copyrights run out); of romance (a verb meaning to shower disk jockeys and musicians with attentions in return for performances...
...furor. The complaints would not recur with such persistance if they were groundless. And, in fact, the courses in elementary French, German, and Spanish are little more than dull for student and instructor alike, a malaise traced to dogged adherence to the rules of grammar. Memorizing the order of verbs, pronouns and whatnot, lists of idioms, and verb forms may be necessary, but there is no need for the zealous stress currently laid on them. This process only dulls what ardor there is for learning, through the language, the culture of other nations...
Despite its pretentiousness, the book has some completely charming parts. Lee's tale of how he engaged four learned old Chinese sages to learn Hebrew in order to translate a crucial verb in the Bible is one of them, as is the story of how Sam Hamilton's wife took her first plane ride. The flight was doubly terrifying because the airplane was something she essentially did not believe...
...their desire for democratic uniformity, even the republic's most eminent men approached prissiness. Franklin crusaded against such verb forms as to notice, opposed to, to progress and to advocate. Editor William Cullen Bryant forbade his reporters to use lengthy, presidential, and to legislate. Meanwhile, John Adams proposed a national institution to provide "a public standard for all persons ... to appeal to." The institution that the nation eventually got was Noah Webster...