Word: fad
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...easier to talk about the Apocalypse and to consult occult books than to admit that one is an abettor of disorder. . . . The Apocalypse is indulged as a fad now in order to avoid undertaking, in the face of the sickness of Europe, measures for public wellbeing. . . . Europe's bad conscience lends itself to playing up the Apocalypse. This is not what the Apocalypse is for . . .1 have no more reason to deny than I have to admit that we may have entered into those convulsions which, according to the Scriptures, precede the end of the intermediary period. What...
...their quarters with my foot drill and instrument box . . . a whole flock of them immediately came running to greet me [with] a come-hither smile full of promise." Later, when the young dentist scaled the betel off the teeth of a native girl in Bangkok, he unwittingly started a fad for gleaming teeth. He was soon swamped with "shy little Siamese ladies" in search of the smile of beauty and the smile of health, who took up so much of his time that he trebled his price...
...blood pressure, hiccups, drug addiction, schizophrenia. One hospital last week was booked solid for the next nine months with appointments for lobotomies (cutting nerves in the brain). There were similar waiting lists elsewhere, and many doctors were getting nervous about the whole subject. They asked: Has the nerve-cutting fad already gone too far; will people who are now getting their nerves cut some day wish they hadn...
...social figure in Vag's prewar circle. Vag had at that time known many ivy-towerish characters, but he still recalled his start of surprise at walking into Sturdy's room and finding ivy growing on the inside walls, deep and luxuriant. Sturdy it was who started the fad of the costs of many tailors: sleeves by Chipp, lapels by Press, pockets by Brooks, and so on. The thing had started as a gag, but Sturdy saw to it that it mushroomed, and Vag was still shamefaced about having bought one just to string along with the boys...
...Existentialism" is more than the name of a jittery Paris fad; it is a description of any philosophy that takes as its starting point the elementary fact of human existence. The word, and the Catholic Church's wish to assist Thomism's prior claim to it, had brought 13th Century Existentialist Aquinas and 20th Century Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre together. The whole room rustled when white-maned Philosopher Jacques Maritain stood up to speak...