Chic seems". By contrast, in Anita Loos' novel, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1925), the diarist Lorelei Lee recorded that "the French use the word 'sheik' for everything, while we only seem to use if for gentlemen when they seem to resemble Rudolf Valentino" (a pun derived from the latter's being the star of the 1921 silent film, "The Sheik"). The Oxford Dictionary gives the comparative and superlative forms of "chic" as "chicer" and "chicest". These are wholly English words: the French equivalents would be "plus chic" and "le/la plus chic". "Super-chic" is sometimes used: "super-chic Incline bucket in mouth-blown, moulded glass". An
Anita Loos always looking for new places to display the diamonds bestowed by her suitors. Emerson, perhaps foreseeing the success of "Blondes" as a threat to his control over Loos, first attempted to suppress its publication, and then merely settled on a personal dedication. Loos continued to be overworked throughout 1926, sometimes working many projects at once. In the spring of 1926 she completed the stage adaptation, which opened a few weeks later in Chicago, and ran for 201 performances on Broadway. Emerson by this time had developed a serious case of hypochondria, using imaginary laryngitis attacks to garner attention away from