 | Your current subscription status is: MyWordaDay Only.
> Did you know Vocab Vitamins Complete is just $16.50/year?
> Subscribe
> Account Settings
To UNSUBSCRIBE, click here and follow the instructions on our simple form.
Fire Escape Partners
3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (transitive verb)
[BLAN-dish] 
1. to coax or persuade by flattery; to cajole: "In the last phase of their recruitment process, the executive team at 'Just In Time Lug Nuts' decided to blandish Joanna with an evening of fine dining."
noun forms: blandisher, blandishment
Origin:
Approximately 1340; from Middle English, 'blaundishing'; borrowed from Old French, 'blandiss-,' stem of 'blandir'; from Latin, 'blandiri': to flatter, from 'blandus': flattering, smooth-tongued, bland. In action:
"The New York century -- the 20th century, that is -- was based on the idea that the city was the center of finance, media and art, the aggregate of American talent and vitality, the flagship of the world's most powerful economy. 'NYC . . . Capital of the World,' the Giuliani-era signs proclaimed. In this context, the nation's love affair with New York in the rapacious 90's made sense. TV shows, mass-market magazines and a mayor with decidedly provincial tastes all combined to present New York, once the 800-pound gorilla of cities, as a cuddly chimp.
As a writer fascinated with New York above all else, I found myself at a loss. Amid the Nasdaq uptick, the hordes of emigres from Ontario and Ohio, the easy blandishments of beef carpaccio and tuna tartare, New York was no longer the city of stories, but rather, to borrow the buzzword of the Internet age, a city of 'content.' That New York is gone now. Two years of tragedy was all it took to wipe out the image of the World City nonpareil. But in its place, once again, we find a city deserving of our love and grace. We live again in a city worthy of narration."
Gary Shteyngart. "The City of Stories Again," The New York Times Magazine (October 5, 2003).
"Every morning, I go to work with a plastic box containing brown rice salad. My husband takes leftovers from the night before. But my five children set off for school with lunch boxes full of what I can only describe as crap.
They each take a white-bread sandwich containing a slice of reconstituted chicken or ham, a packet of crisps, a Cheestring, a chocolate mini-roll and - I do have a conscience - a piece of fruit. Along with 5.5 million other children in Britain, they take a packed lunch to avoid having to eat soggy chips and lumpy custard.
At first, I dispatched them with wholemeal bread and carrot sticks, but these were returned to sender at 3.30pm, or, when I made a fuss about it, binned at school. So, over the years, I have given in to the blandishments of the advertisers and playground peer pressure and let my children take what they want in exchange for the reassurance that they are at least consuming some calories, if not many nutrients."
Cassandra Jardine. "Lessons in making the best lunch," UK Health Telegraph (September 3, 2003).
"Charles, is, in a word, a worm, who woos Celia with a mountain of preposterous, transparent lies. Claiming to be the wealthy, yacht-owning son of a tugboat captain and a lover of all things maritime, this near-penniless gambler, who has been banished from casinos around the world for counting cards, says he is in New Bedford to establish a fish-processing plant.
Once Celia's attention has been engaged, she surrenders far too readily to his ludicrous blandishments. Charles's collaborators in deception, Daniel and Lois (Seymour Cassel and Theresa Russell), a former partner in crime and his much younger wife, make an even more unlikely pair.
It would be putting it kindly to say that Mr. Isaacs is no Hugh Grant. As gamely as he tries to pump charm into his character, Charles still comes across as a toxic twit and a loser. The teaming of Mr. Isaacs with Ms. Milos ultimately makes about as much erotic sense as casting Anthony Perkins opposite Ms. Loren in 'Desire Under the Elms.' As 'Passionada' ambles toward a formulaic fairy-tale ending, it exudes such giddy self-assurance that you wish you could believe in it."
Stephen Holden. "A Journey From Mourning to Moonlight," [Movie Review of 'Passionada,'] The New York Times (September 12, 2003).
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment