Word: vulgarity
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mean streets all over the U.S. He started to talk in the argot of the pool shark and the hustler, a language so obscene that it is no longer obscene, with four-letter words so common that they now seem part of the verbal furniture. Is he vulgar? Of course, but not in his own eyes. "Vulgar," he says, "is like Richard Nixon being allowed in Red China. That's very vulgar. That's vile. Vulgar, onstage, is colorful...
...them were reacting as if a hairy Visigoth had strolled onto one of the sport's immaculately manicured pitches. Reason: an upstart Australian entrepreneur had signed up 51 of the world's best players, and was threatening to turn the hallowed institution into-gad, Sir!-another vulgar spectator sport. Quipped London's Guardian: "The world as we know it is about...
Scimitars of Anger. A famous and acclaimed Nabokov was stylistically careful but never shy about expressing his views on the modern world that up rooted him. From Switzerland, where he moved in 1959, he flashed scimitars of anger and loosed heavy-hearted outrage at crudities, vulgar sentimentality and artistic pretensions that he lumped un der the termposhlost. The word, Russian for a kind of middle-class tackiness, applied not only to the shibboleths and dashboard saints of popular culture but also to the works of Sigmund Freud - which he saw as an internal totalitarianism - and to the poetry of Ezra...
...fact-are you ready for this?-Guccione worries about all the hard-core pornography around. He favors licensing movie theaters like bars. If their marquees are too vulgar or the theaters admit children to X-rated movies, their licenses could be revoked. Nor would he object to legislation that skin magazines could be displayed only at adult height and in such a way that anyone could make a 360° visual sweep of a shop and not be assaulted by nude-magazine covers. He obviously fears any movement that would put his kind of magazine back under the counter. Whatever...
...energy crisis [May 2] affords Americans a priceless, if sad opportunity for self-awareness. Priceless, in that we shall find out once and for all whether there is anything in American life stronger than vulgar materialism and mindless hedonism. Sad, in that there are few reasons to trust that in the struggle for energy, justice will prevail over selfish vested interest. But at least we'll all see ourselves for what we really are. Norman Ravitch Grenoble, France