Word: dreadful
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Students at the Garthar B. Peterson Elementary School in Atlanta used to dread standardized achievement tests. But this spring, when testing time came, their principal staged a pep rally and promised them a trophy and a party if they did well. It worked. When the results came in, the Peterson school had something to cheer about: after years in the doldrums, more than half its students scored above national norms in reading...
Smiling and nodding and handshaking them out the door, then turning to roommates with dread or accusations; and outside in the hall, the committees rating personalities on a grading system from one to seven (except for Ivy, the top, which needs only a plus or minus)--one even reporting the decision, incredibly enough, on a walkie-talkie...
...well-known actors, Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson, pose deeper problems, and offer more radical solutions. Of Morgana, mistress of mandrake and sulfur, Mirren makes an armored, camp enchantress. Swathed in purple veils and seaweed capes, intoning Merlin's dread spells as if they contained the dirtiest and most sacred words in any world, incarcerating the wizard in a cocoon of cotton candy as she proclaims victory over her mentor, Mirren convinces that she could charm a kingdom-or a film- with her perfidy...
...protect them." They are buying guard dogs and supplies of Mace. Locksmiths and burglar-alarm businesses are flourishing, as are classes in karate and target shooting. Banks have long waiting lists for vacated safety-deposit boxes. Many city sidewalks are a muggers' mecca at night; the elderly dread walking anywhere, even in broadest daylight. The fear of street crime is changing the way America lives...
...Victims don't stop being victims when the police leave," says Mrs. Walker. "Violence is disabling. It changes your life for years." The Walkers have moved from the apartment, and she says, "I will never set foot there again. The anger, the dread and the fear are receding. But the rapist is still in my head. I don't think he will ever go away...