Word: buttoned
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...simplest systems do just what the old answering machines do: pick up the phone, play a prerecorded greeting and record whatever the caller has to say. Some add technological bells and whistles, like push-button controls that let their owners save messages or dispatch replies -- to one person or to hundreds of people. Other systems are set up to dispense information, offering callers a menu of choices and playing the messages they select. The most powerful machines combine voice-message units with huge computer files, which enable callers to use their telephones to navigate through long lists of stock quotes...
Even simple things can become rather difficult on the phone. Although Eric is a sailor/FOP leader/athlete, he can't seem to master the use of call waiting. One conversation went like this: "Wait, I have to answer the call waiting. [presses button] Hello? Oh wait, I'll try again. [presses button again] Hello? This isn't working. [presses button again, accidently hangs up on both friends] !#$%&)*(*." And then both callers dial back again at the same time...
WHAT prevents the book from becoming unbearably tedious is its sharp wit. There are moments in the book when the readers laugh aloud: a seven-year-old who chainsmokes steals the change he is supposed to be counting; a lisping grade-schooler is cured after doctors find "a button, a staple, a postage stamp and two buffalo nickels" in his stomach; a heated school election eventually degenerates into a food riot...
...button on sale at Moscow's Izmailovo open-air market not long ago neatly captured the country's traditional attitude toward sex: IN THE SOVIET UNION, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS SEX. As far as public discussion is concerned, the statement is not far from wrong. The U.S.S.R. has long been a society that is not just puritanical but almost completely ignorant about sexuality. The typical Soviet woman has nine abortions not because of liberal attitudes but because the procedure is a substitute for contraception, which is essentially unavailable. Says Igor Kon, a founding father of Soviet sociology...
...very fact that the button is available at all is a sign that those attitudes are beginning to change. The Soviets seem determined to make up for lost time. In the past year as never before, TV shows have been alluding unashamedly to sex and even offering occasional nudity, while films have had explicit sex scenes. Last December at an erotic-art exposition in Moscow, a woman was covered in whipped cream and men in the audience were invited to lick it off; the scene was later shown on late-night TV. The capital even boasts its first touch...