Word: witting
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...make less than a ripple on theatrical tides with endless variations on the inevitable flagrant delit, or with revues and vaudevilles based on evanescent issues of the moment: the Franco-Russian Alliance, X-rays, the Parisian Metro, and the like. Others however, were constructed by comic dramatists of genuine wit and ability, humorists like Georges Feydeau, Tristan Bernard and Georges Courteline. If such authors may never be credited with bringing about any major revolutions in the French (or World) theatre, they were, all the same, uncontested experts in the no less noble endeavor of showing their contemporaries the laughable side...
...halcyon days of the middle 19th century, when there were no wars and the most burning issues were the price of corn and the rise of trade unions, Melbourne was able to make a career of wit and irony. He shocked his fellow politicians by his love of paradox, his itch to ridicule everything, including himself. "The stomach is the seat of health, strength, thought and life," he said, alluding to his fondness for food and drink. "If you have a bad habit, the best way to get out of it is to take your fill...
...more imaginative friend describes it, "Some famous wit--was it Dr. Johnson?--said of a sentence of hanging that 'it concentrates the mind wonderfully'. So also jumping--in particular that delirious moment of exit--concentrates consciousness in a blindingly bright, diamond hard point. Mind has triumphed; this is the moment of pure reason...
July 30th: "Kiss Me Kate" with the music of Cole Porter and the wit of Bella and Sam Spewack...
Success in Supply. Reggie Maudling's open, persuasive manner is the antithesis of Selwynism. Unlike his predecessor, who has always been ill at ease in the House of Commons, Maudling is a born debater with a stylish turn of phrase and a quick wit. Once, when a Labor critic jeered at the government's decision to cut beer taxes, Maudling shot back: "I detect one or two notes of acidity, no doubt arising from mixing cheap bitter and sour grapes." Maudling, whose own tastes run to dry martinis and dancing barefoot on the Riviera with his pretty wife...