Word: fad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Still, dictionaries must face factoids. So, with due sensitivity, the handsome new Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary (2,230 pages; $50), a revised edition of the 1967 family-size version, quarantines about 1,000 examples of jargon, fad words and lamentable journalese and corrals them into a separate "Addenda Section...
...direct pipeline to the nation's psyche. She helped bring such topics as child abuse, homosexuality and marital dysfunction out of the closet and into the public forum. Her legacy can be seen in everything from presidential candidates who discuss their marital problems on TV to the fad for crash diets. And when Winfrey did a show about mad-cow disease earlier this year, beef prices plummeted...
CORN FARMERS They grow the raw material for gasohol, the wacky '70s fad suddenly a little less wacky...
Snowboarding, both freestyle and Alpine, is clearly not just a fad. It's easier to learn than skiing. It's more adaptable to changing snow conditions. And to the chagrin of its grunge contingent, Mom and Dad are buying boards. Brian Delaney, who runs adult snowboarding camps in Colorado, says the average age of his student is 40 and business is up 200% over last year...
Most evidence comes from highly suggestible, scandalously pressured children; some from that newest pseudoscientific fad, recovered memory. "We should not be dragging people through the courts on folklore," protests psychology professor Elizabeth Loftus. Well, folklore reigned in Wenatchee, Washington--Has anyone checked the state water supply?--site of perhaps the most notorious such case. There, Pastor Robert Roberson and about a dozen parishioners were said to have lined up to have sex with young children in front of the altar while shouting, "Hallelujah, there goes the devil...