Word: flinch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Though children flinch at gifts that are meant to be good for them, it is still true that toys that teach unobtrusively have real staying power. "Children are extraordinarily curious about their environment," says Richard Garvey, vice president of marketing for Lego. "Fad items like Hula Hoops do not engage a child's innate desire to learn." That desire largely accounts for the ubiquitous plastic Lego bricks, which can now be found in 55% of American homes with children under 15. "The best thing about the Lego blocks," says Paul Matthews, 37, father of Paul Chandler Matthews...
...irreverent spoof and slapstick, contends that their brand of film satire requires a particular frame of mind and involves a certain amount of risk. The blockbuster reception of Airplane! was followed up by the disaster of Top Secret. When the latter film is mentioned, both Weiss and Zucker flinch. As Zucker says, "It isn't like drama where you can say `You simply didn't get the "heavyosity" we were aiming for.'" In comedy, the sound (or lack) of laughter is an immediate indication of success (or failure...
...Asserts Sam Nakagama of the Manhattan-based consulting firm Nakagama & Wallace: "Views are changing radically right now. It appears we are going to have a vigorous economy next year." Agrees Edward Yardeni, chief economist of Prudential-Bache Securities: "Much to everyone's surprise, the economy didn't even flinch from the crash. Clearly, I do not see a recession coming...
...there, Rushdie does note a few flaws in the revolutionary state. His most vexing concern is that a government of writers -- both President Daniel Ortega and his wife have published verse, while Vice President Sergio Ramirez produces fiction -- has also become a government of censors. Nor does he flinch from recording the naivete of teenage soldiers eager for battle. Yet such imperfections are not enough to prevent him from rooting for what he regards as a brave Nicaraguan David up against the North American Goliath. "Were these dictators in the making?" he asks of his ostentatious hosts. "No. Emphatically...
...known Italian restaurants, and playing the courtly gentleman in his double-breasted $1,800 suits. At 45, Gotti -- his once lean figure having become stocky but his imperious gaze just as chilling -- is a mixture of the old and new Mafia styles. Like the traditional mobsters, he does not flinch at the promiscuous use of violence; informers report he has a temper of titanic proportions. But unlike the aging leadership, Gotti seems to revel in his own notoriety...