Word: fad
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...operator. Even worse, the tune they select might well complete an expensive call to London or Paris. Experienced players usually place a local call to a friend and tap out new melodies to him only after the connection has been made. Otherwise, the explosive spread of the fad seems to be limited only by two factors: 1) the relatively small number of pushbutton phones in service and 2) the lack of # and * buttons (necessary for Happy Birthday and certain other tunes) on some models...
Renewed Concern. The beginning of that dialogue has stirred up all sorts of hopes and interests about China among Americans. Some of the interest is pure fad-the fascination with baggy peasant suits and spicy Szechwan cooking, for instance. But the fact is that the last 23 years of ill will and hatred represent an aberration in the history of Sino-American relations, and the renewed concern about China is a restoration of normalcy. America's attachment to China dates back to the mid-19th century, when the U.S. derived considerable moral satisfaction from befriending the helpless, prostrate country...
Uncertain Future. Unfortunately, as Greeley sees it, there is little new religious scholarship to help formulate the needed answers. The Second Vatican Council dislodged much traditional thinking, and a good deal of what has been produced since then, Greeley told the committee, has been mere fad. The U.S. church needs to have perhaps "ten or 20 at-large bishops" who are scholars themselves, and who would be free to concentrate on various specialties. One area that desperately needs new theoretical formulation, Greeley said, is sexual morality "to take into account the insights of modern psychology and personalistic philosophy...
...early convert to the menswear fad was Actress Betsy von Furstenberg, now touring the provinces in The Gingerbread Lady, who bought a boy's outfit for herself last fall when she was shopping for her prep-school son. "She's an incredibly feminine woman," says Allen Murphy, an ad man and a longtime friend. "She usually looks best in a pouf of chiffon, but she really looks terrific in boys' clothes...
Such jokes may soon be back in style, for much of progressive education has been revived in the current movement toward "informal" education in "open" classrooms. Once again it threatens to become a fad. In hundreds of tiny private "free" schools and in public classrooms in nearly every state, the fixed rows of desks and the fixed weekly lessons have been abandoned. Instead, children roam from one study project to another, theoretically following their native curiosity and learning at their own uneven rates. But even the supporters of "informal education" are beginning to fear that many schools are adopting...