Word: fad
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...plastic surgeons are cheering the trend: some feel too many non-specialists are getting involved and also have doubts about the efficacy of some fad treatments. "A lot of these non-invasive techniques become fashionable, but it's a slightly dodgy market," says David Sharpe, a surgeon in Bradford, England. Some fills, he notes, can cause lumps, and lasers can scar if misused...
...much potential for great literature in SMS. In fact, cute abbreviations like wassup, ruup4it and clever "emoticon" symbols such as :-) and :-( make real poetry lovers wince. "Puh-leeze!" says Hamish Ironside of Anvil Press, an independent poetry publisher in London. "This isn't literature. It's a game, a fad." And besides, he adds, "I don't have a mobile phone...
...Millions of his countrymen and -women do. And fad or art form, the text message is entering the realm of popular fiction. Helen Fielding, author of the best-selling Bridget Jones's Diary, has launched an "Ask Bridget" service with Finnish wireless entertainment publisher RIOT-E. For 34 cent, subscribers can dial up a daily text message from Fielding - writing in characteristic Bridget Jones mode - on the quest for thinner thighs and inner poise. "Mobile phones are a perfect way to add another dimension to book characters," says Jan Wellman, RIOT-E's chief executive...
...Dubbed as the first fad of the 21st century, text messaging is not entirely new. Teenagers have long sought secret ways of communicating with each other. And for people as a whole, says Jay Jasanoff, chair of the linguistics department at Harvard University, "English language and English literature will neither stand nor fall by the use of wassup, ruup4it or even a happy face...
Little Lee Doo Dam is just one example. He may have managed to hold out against Pokémon, but then the newest Japanese fad hit - the Digimon cartoon series. Doo Dam caved - like most of his buddies who have helped make the comics the top-selling children's books at Seoul's giant Kyobo bookstore. "It's fun and there is no Korean comic to match it," he says. "So I think it is O.K. to read Digimon. Even if it comes from Japan...