Word: wail
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...chilling wail of sirens sounded over Hanoi last week, a radio announcer quickly reassured his listeners that U.S. bombers were not on their way. "Don't run for the air-raid shelters," he said. "Let us celebrate the great victory." The citizens of Hanoi needed no encouragement. Normally the most staid and restrained of people, they exploded in an all-day celebration that rivaled Rio's carnival in exuberance...
...bankruptcy of the Rock Island Line [March 31] is a sad milestone. The human-like wail of a train whistle once meant "Freedom!" to millions of small-town youth, who hopped freights if they couldn't afford to buy a ticket. The clickety-clack of the rails fitted the banjo and guitar rhythms of hundreds of our best folk songs. Neither airplanes nor automobiles ever caught our heartstrings...
...Westerners ever fathomed the appeal of Umm Kulthum, the buxom, handkerchief-waving Egyptian singer who was known to her Middle Eastern fans as "the Nightingale of the Nile." She had a stentorian contralto and a quavering wail that grated on the ears of those attuned to the trills of opera divas. But her voice was a near-perfect instrument for expressing the sinuous quarter tones of Arabic music...
...Formula One's start to practice. Running through their gears, these cars wail like air-raid sirens going at full blast. They will average over 120 mph on this course with its 11 curves and two long straights. Watching these cars run their laps is like seeing five out of every 100 frames of a motion picture; a series of loud flashes with little continuity and a great deal of suspense between glimpses. I won't know the overall story of the race until I read it in the next day's paper...
...taken driving a dog team. Arriving in Anchorage, however, Tucker found no snow. Gamely he dressed up in a fur-trimmed anorak and posed his wife Sara in the sled, then waved a whip above five puzzled huskies. He was not so happy when the dogs set up a wail reminiscent of / Pagliacci. "Mush!" he cried, and swung the whip in his wife's direction saying, "It's the first time in more than 35 years I've had a chance to crack a whip over my wife...