Word: constant
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pivot man like George Mikan would stand up against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about as well as the Four Horsemen would pull their pony weight in a National Football League backfield. Because baseball players appear not to change so much, they present their fans a wonderful illusion of constant values, like .300 batting averages. By this week, the fans should resume arguing over Pete Rose and Ty Cobb, surer than ever that human beings have always been made of the same clay...
Average household income in constant dollars is dropping steadily: from $21,400 in 1980 to $20,600 today. In 1981 less than a third of all households headed by a person under 35 had any discretionary income...
...song, produced by a pair of ribbed membranes at the sides of the male's abdomen, is irritating to predators. That seems fanciful, but perhaps it is true because people are uncommonly cross about cicadas and complain that their song is nerve-racking. In Missouri, these days, it is constant and pervasive. The cicadas have three things to say. One is a steady, insistent, buzzy trill: zs-zs-zs-zs-zs. It is a background to a more varied kee-o-keeeee-o-kee-o that punctuates the steady drone. When picked up and held, the cicadas emit a sharp...
Before the court of public opinion returns its verdict, it should consider the role of a heretofore unindicted co-conspirator: a pervasive, insidious force--a constant presence powerful enough to impose its will on the so-called free press. That presence was wielding its influence before the hostage crisis, and it's quietly exerting pressure today...
These conflicting tugs of direction are a perplexing constant in the lives of millions of youthful American immigrants. Growing up in two cultures is at once a source of frustration and delight, shame and pride, guilt and satisfaction. It can be both a barrier to success and a goad to accomplishment, a dislocating burden or an enriching benison. First-generation Americans have an "astonishing duality," declares Harvard Psychiatrist Robert Coles, himself the son of an English immigrant. "They tend to have a more heightened awareness both of being American and also of being connected to another country...