Stuarts' Daily Word Spot (Antonyms): Zany/Serious

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Zany/Serious

Zany: adjective - comically idiotic; ridiculous or comic; bizarre, crazy.

Serious: adjective - grave, solemn or sober in disposition or intention; responsible, neither reckless nor careless.

'The tabloid newspaper was in the habit of describing any student activity that was even marginally out of the ordinary as "zany", so that it was impossible to take its reports seriously.'

'Jason was a serious young man; his sober clothes, sedate manner and generally grave habit made him the butt of the jokes played by his more frivolous fellow students.'

1703 - Tokyo was hit by an earthquake, which killed about 37,000.

1919 - Lincoln's Inn in London admitted its first female law student. And even after almost a hundred years of supposed equality, women are seriously underrepresented as barristers and judges. So much for progress, eh?

Stuarts' Daily Word Spot (Antonyms): Yell/Whisper

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Yell/Whisper

Yell: noun - a loud cry of pain, fear, anger, delight, triumph or surprise; a shout, scream.

Verb - to utter a yell or shout.

Whisper: noun - an instance of whispering or speaking softly; a softness of voice characterizing such speech; a whispered phrase.

Verb - to speak very softly; to converse like this for the sake of secrecy;

'When Roger crept up behind Sarah, fresh and warm from her shower, and placed his cold hands over her uncovered breasts, she gave out a great yell of shock and indignation.'

'As the time came for the news to be passed on, John brought Mandy close, embraced her, and with a gentle whisper, explained that he wouldn't be spending the night with her but with Jacob.'

'In the falling darkness of dusk, the dark figure that emerged from the trees and lurched toward her, made Martha yell with fear.'

'Mark teased Maria's auburn locks away from her small ears and placed his mouth close so he could whisper words of love and tenderness to her without alerting her husband to his feelings.'

1846 - Iowa became the 29th state of the US.

1908 - An Earthquake struck Messina in Italy and killed nearly 80,000.

1981 - The infamous Rendelsham Forest UFO incident, in Suffolk near the US Airforce base, caused much speculation in the press. Just another cause for conflict between those who believe and those who don't. If the military had been more open from the beginning, the whole field of UFOs could probably have been less fraught with conspiracy theory.