Word: fad
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...overall effect," explains Lloyd Chiswick, 27, a Stanford University senior, "is studied but complete nonchalance." Says a Princeton junior: "The whole thing is wrapped up in coolness, in both senses of the word." They were talking about the most widespread fad on U.S. campuses, which is not to wear socks-not with sneakers, loafers, sandals or even brogues...
Provocative Hairs. Nobody knows just where or when the fad first began. Easterners say that it started in the West; students at U.C.L.A., one of the few schools where the fad has not caught on, insist that "it looks like it came from New York." There is a suspicion that thousands of students have taken it up for no other reason than that their socks are in the laundry...
...nightmarish visions of a rapidly disintegrating mind? Not at all. These are happenings in Greenwich Village as reported by the eleven-year-old weekly Village Voice. Few Village fancies escape the attention of the Voice. No Village fad-from psychedelic shopping centers to erotic Christmas ornaments-is too eccentric to be ignored. As a result, the weekly has begun to show a modest profit. Its circulation has reached 56,000. Now that it has embarked on its first promotion drive, it expects to reach 75,000 by next spring...
...accepted that the Japanese substitute them for barley water as warm-weather refreshers, upper-caste Indians serve them at wedding receptions, and Middle East businessmen offer them to visitors as an alternative to Turkish coffee. Europeans mix their whisky with ginger ale or lemon-lime. White Rhodesians have a fad on for brandy and Coke. Zambian copper-belt workers, who once paid threepence for a home-brewed raspberry drink, now pay sixpence for "sophisticated" sodas. Everywhere, increasing ownership of refrigerators has lifted soft-drink sales. In Hong Kong, U.S. brands hold 60% of a $13 million market against such competitors...
Nonetheless, the university administrators are mostly tolerant of their academic undergrounds, since, so far at least, the students have not been neglecting English 203 for the sake of LSD 1. At worst, the administrators are quietly amused by the pretensions of what they consider a passing fad of idealistic youth. Says Princeton President Robert Goheen: "It's a little ambitious to call it a college...