APROPOS OF NOTHING

The Ugly American “Until recently, it has been quite easy to pick an American out of a crowd […]

The Ugly American

“Until recently, it has been quite easy to pick an American out of a crowd on European streets, but no more. It’s not that the Ugly American has totally vanished — there are still plenty of them wandering the world — but in recent years they have been challenged by the Germans, English, Russians and a host of others.”

German investors and the Romanian government are planning to develop Dracula Land, a “terror” theme

park in Transylvania that officials hope will boost the country’s ailing tourism industry

Ethem Sahin thought his friends were kidding when they told him how he ended up in the hospital. But they witnessed the cow fall through the roof of the coffee house where they were playing dominoes and knock Sahin unconscious.

ambisinister (am-bi-SIN-uh-stuhr) adjective

Clumsy with both hands. (Literally, with two left hands.)

[Latin ambi- both, + sinister, on the left side.]

“Staff sergeant Gawkward hoped to win a medal or two by firing two

rifles at the same time. When he managed to hit his fellow soldiers

instead, all he earned was the remark ambisinister in his service record.”

-Anu Garg, AWAD, Jul 20, 2001.

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