Word: ersatz
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When the Russians rolled them over, some of the dead Germans were seen to have little colored packets that looked like hotel soap. At first the Russians thought they were some kind of ersatz soap, then they were found to be foods-revolutionary tablet foods so long the favorite of popular science prophets. That was last year...
...faced, 63-year-old Mr. Spangler girded himself last week to take command of the G.O.P. strategy that will lead it to 1944. The unanimity with which he had been chosen was synthetic; the harmony which he is supposed to stand for will be, at best, ersatz. For Mr. Spangler knew, as Willkie knew and as the Chicago Tribune knew, that no mere middle-course champion of compromise could ever span the gap within the party: between the Willkie wing and the extreme isolationist symbolized by Schroeder and Colonel McCormick's Tribune...
...ersatz materials are often better than the products they replace. Samples exhibited at Chicago's National Chemical Exposition: an Army raincoat that weighs 1½ Ib. less than the old model, saves 1¾ Ib. of rubber; plastic buttons for uniforms; synthetic bristles, tetered like natural hog hairs, for paintbrushes...
Germany invented ersatz during World War I, staked her economic survival in World War II on a big program of synthetic substitutes for gasoline, rubber, leather, textiles and even foods. In spite of this advance preparation there is now a serious ersatz shortage in Germany. Substitutes for substitutes are the topic of most of the German scientific news reaching the American Chemical Society, mostly from refugees in England...
Typical is the situation with ersatz motor fuel. Most of the synthetic gasoline made from coal, plus the conquered Rumanian oil, has been invested in the Caucasus campaign for more oil. Meanwhile wartime traffic limps on carbon monoxide made in portable charcoal burners (TIME, Sept. 7). Last week a new ersatz fuel appeared in the news: liquefied methane gas in pressure tanks. This fuel is obtained by "bottling" natural gas in Italy, Hungary and Denmark, and also as a byproduct in the production of gasoline from coal. Recently Berlin Gasworks Co. prepared to extract methane from the city gas supply...