Word: ancient
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Withington understands acquisitive lust. "I'm a multimillionaire," he tells a visitor. "I'm president of the town bank. I own five houses and a church too." He is and he does, in this well-barbered hamlet of Hillsboro Center, N.H., a glossy enclave of green lawns and ancient white clapboards, with never a rusty manure spreader or junked '67 Plymouth sagging in the sideyard. His self-pleasure is bubbly and innocent. A visitor asks whether it is true that he takes 20% from each sale. "Yes!" he says, beaming. He is delighted to be ringmaster of the classiest...
...Innovation is so much a part of this place that each year there are essays on new developments, new concentrations, new changes in the departments and what have you," said the Ford Professor of Ancient and Modern History Franklin L. Ford...
...shifted to the Pacific, away from the Atlantic. After having worked for six years with higher education in East Asia, especially with the People's Republic of China, Pusey says, "I feel myself that we have worshipped this Western tradition too long. The Chinese civilization is so much more ancient than ours, and here we look down on them...
...Negative journalese, a strong branch of the language, combines a complimentary word with an apparently innocent but actually murderous modifier. "She is still pretty," for instance, means, "She is long in the tooth" or "Good grief! Is she still around?" Other useful adjectives include "crusty" (obnoxious), "unpredictable" (bonkers), "experienced" (ancient) and "small but well-financed" (don't invest in this turkey...
...yearning for a son is so intense that the girl is called Howard anyway. Some nations feel obliged to intervene against such eccentricities. In France, it is illegal to give any child a name that is not already held by a saint (or a "well-known figure in ancient history"), who presumably would watch over the protege. The courts specifically forbade one couple to name their child Cerise (Cherry). In the U.S., by contrast, the Navy once got applications from half a dozen brothers who all bore names like Measles Jones and Pneumonia Jones and whatever other ills had afflicted...