Word: crass
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Entertainment, she wants us to understand, is a noisy, rowdy affair better suited to the marketplace than the library. But Tisdale tacks this argument on at the end of her piece. She argues for silence as an antidote to the undemocratic nature of crass commercialism, which is embodied by the marketplace. This is the truly offensive bit of the piece because democracy cannot be silent...
...regard to L'Affaire Newt, I would say, "Mr. Speaker, people who work in crass Houses shouldn't throw stones." CHARLES J. HUEBNER Harbor Springs, Michigan...
...Sundays at the University of Wisconsin were enlivened by the radio broadcasts of William T. Evjue, founder and publisher of the Capital Times and an aging veteran of the Progressive Era. For me the most memorable of his fulminations came during the Christmas season, when he thundered against the crass commercialization perpetrated by fat-cat corporate greed--followed immediately by his observation that a subscription to the Capital Times would make a splendid holiday gift...
...obsession with language. In the 18th-century court portrayed in "Ridicule," the skillful manipulation of language is the sole means of gaining and keeping social status. The world of Versailles is shaped by what they refer to as "wit." Lest one believe that this wit is based on the crass premise of merely producing amusement, one French noble dismisses disdainfully the "hew-mah" of the English as being far inferior to French wit. The use of wit is sadistic, funny only if you enjoy seeing people being cut down with a single brittle and elegant phrase. For all its elaborateness...
Justin Elliot Jones' letter regarding Mel Gibson's speech requires a response that is as "flippant and crass" as Gibson's speech itself: lighten up! Unlike Mr. Jones, I did attend the speech, and I found it amusing and entertaining. Maybe Mr. Jones doesn't realize that those things have some value in themselves...