Word: fad
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...Culture. Author Davidson dips into newspapers, letters, diaries and popular songs for added flavor. Whittling, reported a visiting Englishman, Captain Frederick Marryat, "is a habit, arising from the natural restlessness of the American when he is not employed." The New York Evening Post complained (in 1828) about the new fad of men playing ball in the city: "The annoyance has become absolutely intolerable . . . and ought to be put an end to without delay." A generation later, a teamster who had struck it rich in Nevada passed a verdict on U.S. culture: "Ther arn't no chance for a gentleman...
...kangeroos ever since some nameless hot-rodder rigged a sparkplug in his exhaust pipe and made a profound discovery-that waste gases, thus ignited, produce a spectacular "hoosh" of flame. Last week the Portland, Ore. city council was taking steps to make hot-rod flame-throwing illegal. But the fad was moving faster than the lawmakers ; Longview, Wash, reported with nervous pride that a local rodder was regularly getting a six-foot "hoosh...
...fad dies out, another often takes its place. The latest, Dr. Lederer believes, is the indiscriminate use of radium treatments for adenoids. These oldtime medical villains (once blamed for everything from bad teeth to snoring) should be left alone, he says, unless they are damaging the patient's hearing. If so, out with them...
Chamber music used to be strictly highbrow country; nowadays it is close to becoming a U.S. fad. One of the best examples of the current trend: the steadily increasing popularity of the Budapest String Quartet...
B.V.D. sparked another style revolution in the '30s, when its publicity stills of Olympic Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in B.V.D. bathing trunks helped start the fad of topless swimming trunks for men. With the late Cinemactress Jean Harlow as a model, B.V.D. helped start the trend toward skirtless, one-piece bathing suits for women. But in 1934, Hollywood dealt men's underwear a near-mortal blow. In It Happened One Night, Clark Gable took off his shirt, and revealed that he wore no undershirt. Sales of men's underwear in the U.S. dropped 40% in a single year...