Word: fad
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...blood pressure, hiccups, drug addiction, schizophrenia. One hospital last week was booked solid for the next nine months with appointments for lobotomies (cutting nerves in the brain). There were similar waiting lists elsewhere, and many doctors were getting nervous about the whole subject. They asked: Has the nerve-cutting fad already gone too far; will people who are now getting their nerves cut some day wish they hadn...
...social figure in Vag's prewar circle. Vag had at that time known many ivy-towerish characters, but he still recalled his start of surprise at walking into Sturdy's room and finding ivy growing on the inside walls, deep and luxuriant. Sturdy it was who started the fad of the costs of many tailors: sleeves by Chipp, lapels by Press, pockets by Brooks, and so on. The thing had started as a gag, but Sturdy saw to it that it mushroomed, and Vag was still shamefaced about having bought one just to string along with the boys...
...Existentialism" is more than the name of a jittery Paris fad; it is a description of any philosophy that takes as its starting point the elementary fact of human existence. The word, and the Catholic Church's wish to assist Thomism's prior claim to it, had brought 13th Century Existentialist Aquinas and 20th Century Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre together. The whole room rustled when white-maned Philosopher Jacques Maritain stood up to speak...
...campus fad in 1936. Started as a satire on World War I veterans, who had pressed Congress for bonuses, the Veterans of Future Wars soon had 60,000 members. The official salute: an outstretched arm, itching palm up. The platform: bonuses now, while we're still here to use them. Founder (and National Commander) Lewis Gorin Jr. and Treasurer Thomas Riggs Jr. served overseas as officers in World...
Sales of perfume and costume jewelry were dolefully slow. But sales of gay scarves were phenomenal. They were 1947's chief fad everywhere. Another fad: "shorty" coats (known in some stores as "swallow tails"). In Chicago, Marshall Field's offered a shorty specialty which was going like hot cakes among teenagers: a "hot-jive jacket" of yellow plastic with such sharp legends as "Natch" and "Slick Chick" printed on it. The "slicker" days of the twenties were back...