Word: fad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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While wags talk of elections turning into "pissing matches," drug testing has become a new campaign fad. In Kentucky, Republican Congressional Candidate Jim Polley challenged Incumbent Chris Perkins to meet him at a hospital for a urinating match. Perkins did not show up, but Polley gave his sample anyway. Perkins facetiously countered with a challenge to take lie-detector tests, AIDS tests and chest X rays. Other candidates publicly joining in include Republican Congressman Thomas Kindness of Ohio, who is running against Senator John Glenn, and Democratic Senator Alan Dixon of Illinois...
Besides, Harvard is not all a matter of social problems and cosmic issues. Some Harvard graduates with very long memories still recall the day when Lothrop Withington Jr., '42, swallowed a goldfish to win a $10 bet and set off a national fad that is better forgotten. Others will always remember the day in 1968 when mighty Yale was leading by 29-13 with only 42 seconds remaining in the Game, and then all kinds of incredible things began happening. The Crimson headline next day: HARVARD WINS, 29-29. Others remember less epic events: sculling on the Charles, drinking...
...print publishers are so sanguine. One longtime editor believes, "Every dollar spent on tapes is taken away from the essence of literacy -- the printed book that started it all." Peter Israel, president of the Putnam Publishing Group, Inc., dismisses talking books as a "fad, certainly, but I'm not sure it's a real business." But those who have made a commitment to electronic literature beg to differ. Newman Communications Corp., one of the fastest-growing tape publishers in the U.S., began in 1981 with sales of less than $200,000, which leaped to more than $7 million three years...
...charity events like Live Aid could help get the young into the habit of giving. But organizers are already worrying about "compassion fatigue." Pop charity may turn out to be one more passing fad. At the upper end of the economic scale, some wonder if charity is in danger of succumbing to chic. New York Financier Felix Rohatyn, who along with his wife Elizabeth has launched a small crusade against events that concentrate more on social glamour than helping worthy causes, is concerned that the pet charities of the New York rich, the favored museums and cultural institutions and hospitals...
Selchow's value has fallen because Trivial Pursuit proved to be a fad. The manufacturer's annual sales of the game plunged from $400 million two years ago to roughly $50 million now, estimates Paul Valentine, a toy-industry analyst. In contrast, Coleco's Cabbage Patch annual sales rose 11% last year, to $600 million...