Word: eyeblink
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Exactly two decades ago as the knees stiffen, but a gnat's eyeblink in geologic time, a writer for the New Yorker hit on a notion for a Talk of the Town piece, one of those short, graceful, somewhat owlish essays that in those days were told with a royally editorial "we." John McPhee's excellent idea was to collar a geologist friend, visit the rock walls of a recent highway cut not far from Manhattan and relate what the newly naked stone told the geologist...
...requiring the automakers to prominently disclose taxes, title, security and registration fees, which can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. Such fees, which must all be paid up front, are often glossed-over in television ads, hidden in tiny text that flashes off the screen in an eyeblink. Some auto dealers say consumers are savvy enough to read the fine print before signing a deal, but the FTC says it wants to protect consumers from being lured in by misleading ads. For many consumers used to purchasing their vehicle outright, leasing is a new financial arrangement. Currently...
...half an hour onscreen, the Genie makes dozens of eyeblink metamorphoses: a Scotsman, a Scots dog, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senor Wences, Ed Sullivan, Groucho Marx, a French waiter, a turkey, the crows from Dumbo, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, a rabbit, a dinosaur, William F. Buckley Jr., Robert De Niro, a stewardess, a bashful sheep, Pinocchio, a magician, a Jean Gabin-style Frenchman, Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid, Arsenio Hall, a finicky tailor, Walter Brennan, a TV parade host and hostess, Ethel Merman, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Nicholson, a talking lampshade, a bee, a U- boat, a one-man band...
...rapidly disappearing republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, though, the vicious fighting that has raged since February might really end soon. Not primarily because of the cease-fire announced in London last week; no one yet knows whether it will become fully effective, let alone last any longer than an eyeblink. Nor will any thanks be due to the American and European statesmen who have almost daily proclaimed that the bloodshed must stop but have done nothing effective. If peace -- even the peace of the grave -- is at all foreseeable, it is only because aggression is on the verge of winning...