Word: fad
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bebop boîtes, hairdos, beards, evening gowns, newspapers, cocktails, hot-dog stands became "existentialist." An under-tipped taxi driver would curse: "Espèce d'existentialiste." Existentialism became a familiar tourist attraction, like the Folies-Bergere. Sartre, increasingly successful and respectable, occasionally deplored the popularizations of his fad-he even felt compelled to move out of his favorite café, the Flore, to escape the tourists' vulgar stares. Last week existentialism took its ultimate step to solid respectability. The dignified Collège de France elected Existentialist Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty-an old school friend of Sartre...
Since raising chinchillas is almost as easy as keeping canaries, the fad caught on fast in Southern California. The animals can be fed for $3 a year (mostly on hay and vitamin-enforced pellets), and females will bear three to 15 young a year...
Chief Tall Bull crashed to the ground, shot dead as a doornail by Major Frank North of the Pawnee scouts. Little did the poor Indian know that in biting the. dust he was launching a literary fad, and that it would change the lives of half the boys in the civilized world. For hot on the heels of North's bullet rode Ned Buntline, the famed dime novelist, all agog to plump Tall Bull's slayer into one of his thrillers. North, a simple soldier, refused to be blown up into a "paperback hero." "If you want...
...Culture. Author Davidson dips into newspapers, letters, diaries and popular songs for added flavor. Whittling, reported a visiting Englishman, Captain Frederick Marryat, "is a habit, arising from the natural restlessness of the American when he is not employed." The New York Evening Post complained (in 1828) about the new fad of men playing ball in the city: "The annoyance has become absolutely intolerable . . . and ought to be put an end to without delay." A generation later, a teamster who had struck it rich in Nevada passed a verdict on U.S. culture: "Ther arn't no chance for a gentleman...
...kangeroos ever since some nameless hot-rodder rigged a sparkplug in his exhaust pipe and made a profound discovery-that waste gases, thus ignited, produce a spectacular "hoosh" of flame. Last week the Portland, Ore. city council was taking steps to make hot-rod flame-throwing illegal. But the fad was moving faster than the lawmakers ; Longview, Wash, reported with nervous pride that a local rodder was regularly getting a six-foot "hoosh...