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sider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.'" Speech, 7/4/39

rustic

"This week a rustic setting in the Berkshire Hills was a gathering place for a group that is dedicated to preserving the Yiddish language." Tina Rosenberg, "Living an American Life in Yiddish," New York Times, 9/3/99

S

saga

"The saga of the Kennedy family has enthralled and saddened us." Barbara Walters, quoted in New York Times, 7/10/99

sage

"I am not a visionary, nor am I a sageI claim to be a practical idealist." Mohandas Gandhi quoted by John Gunther,

Procession, 1965

salient

"The salient feature of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 is that it prohibits discrimination against the disabled." Robert McFadden, "Court Ruling on Disabled Teacher Is Annulled," New York Times, 6/25/99

sally

"The next morning we decided to sally forth to try to find a site for our new home." Stephen Leacock, "How My Wife and I Built Our Home for $4.90"

salubrious

"For my later years there remains the salubrious effects of work: stimulation and satisfaction." Kathe Kollwitz,

Diaries and Letters, 1955

salvation

"Maybe it is connected with some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal salvation, with some bargain with the devil." Aleksandr Pushkin, "The Queen of Spades"

sanctimonious

"There has never been a shortage of sanctimonious arguments for starting a war." Peter Finley Dunne, Mr. Dooley Remembers

sanction

"He received his father's sanction and authority." George Meredith, Diana of the Crossways

sanctuary

"The identity of Rinehart may be a temporary sanctuary for the narrator, but it is another identity he must reject if he is to find himself as a person." Anthony Abbott, Invisible Man

sanguine

"I'm not sanguine about the Knicks' chances to upset the San Antonio Spurs." Telephone caller to WFAN Sports Radio Program, 6/8/99

satiety

"One of the soldiers was given leave to be drunk six weeks, in hopes of curing him by satiety." William Cowper,

Selected Letters

saturate

"Vanilla sweetens the air, ginger spices it; melting nose-tingling odors saturate the kitchen." Truman Capote, "A Christmas Memory"

schism

"The schism between the manager and his best pitcher spilled over from the locker room onto the field." Bob Klapisch, The Worst Team That Money Could Buy

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scurry

''Some small night-bird, flitting noiselessly near the ground on its soft wings, almost flapped against me, only to scurry away in alarm." Ivan Turgenev, "Bezhin Meadows"

sedate

"Few public places maintain a sedate atmosphere equal to the majestic chambers of the Supreme Court." Milton Konvitz, editor, Bill of Rights Reader

sedentary

"Seeger had seen him relapsing gradually into the small-town hardware merchant he had been before the war, sedentary and a little shy." Irwin Shaw, "Act of Faith"

senile

"Being on golf's Senior Tour doesn't mean that we're senile." Leon Jaroff, "Those Rich Old Pros," TIME, 9/27/99

serenity

"At the top, they planted the crucifix and gathered round, moved by the serenity." Sontag Orme, "Solemnity and Flash in the Land of Jesus," New York Times, 1/1/00

servile

"Uriah Heep, so physically repulsive and hypocritically servile, fascinated David at first but later revolted him." Holly Hughes, Barron's Book Notes, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

shibboleths

Dialects are sometimes used as shibboleths to signal the ethnic or social status of the speaker." Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue

sinecure

"Matthew Arnold's job was a sinecure, allowing him plenty of time to travel and write lyrics." Nicholas Jenkins, "A Gift Improvised," New York Times, 6/20/99

singular

"The fate that rules in matters of love is often singular, and its ways are inscrutable, as this story will show." Meyer Goldschmidt, "Henrik and Rosalie"

sinister

"The man had a cordially sinister air." Hernando Tellez, "Ashes for the Wind"

site

"The site of the bison herd's destruction was a tall cliff over which they were driven." Brian Fagan, Time Detectives

skirmish

"They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them." William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

slovenly

"The twenty-six year old's slovenly appearance belied the fact that he was one of the Silicon Valley's brightest stars." Reuben Cowan, "Today Dot-Com"

sojourn

"He returned from a long sojourn in Europe." Alan McCulloch, Encyclopedia of Australian Art

solace

"He read in a Bible that he had neglected for years, but he could gain little solace from it." Theodore Dreiser, "The Lost Phoebe"

solicited

"The police chief said that Commissioner Safir had not yet solicited his opinion on the question." "Police Chief Says Officers Deserve Raise," New York Times, 6/15/99