Word: fad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...image has been hijacked by cheap merchandise does not in itself diminish the importance of Earth Day. But by treating the event as if it were the Super Bowl or Head of the Charles Weekend, its message is obscured, and support for environmental conservation is reduced to a mere fad. Earth Day now more resembles the Simpsons or Batman than a crucial consciousness-raising event...
...psyche and vocabulary of the '80s. "People ask for Perrier when they want mineral water," says Dan Rose, a bartender at an uptown Manhattan restaurant, "the same way they ask for Kleenex when they want a tissue. Perrier has come to mean mineral water." Riding the decade's fitness fad, sales jumped 190% in seven years...
...fad has even caught on in the Third World, with much of the news of recent elections in South America and India dominated by reports about polls. That is more than a little disturbing. For, as the best pollsters recognize, the deepest questions of life -- or politics, or journalism -- can be probed only in the most primitive manner with the blunt instrument of a poll. Thus readers entering upon stories peppered with numbers and percentage signs should arm themselves with a mental note: POLL AHEAD -- PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK...
When California announced in 1987 that it was establishing a state Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau satirized the idea as a flaky New Age fad. Now the all- volunteer task force has completed its report, and the sneers are turning to cheers. Among the group's sensible recommendations: offering parenting classes to high school students, requiring prospective teachers to take courses in self-esteem, and establishing peer support groups for people on welfare. Most important, the report urges changes in the juvenile-justice system to "attach a reasonable sanction...