Word: habitable
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...react intensely to everything: instead of soft crying, an enraged howl; instead of quiet chuckles, uncontrolled laughter, sometimes ending in a paroxysm of hiccups. Eating and sleeping schedules are irregular, and everything new requires long periods of difficult adjustment. Easy children-the most numerous category-are regular in habit, sunny in mood, quick to adapt. And the slow-to-warm-ups are just that: not very active at first, rather negative in mood, and likely to back off from new situations...
...another, subtler casualty list that will haunt American society even after the last G.I. has left Viet Nam-the troops who became addicted to heroin while serving in Southeast Asia. The number is staggering: between 10% and 15% of U.S. troops in Viet Nam have developed a heroin habit. That represents from 26,000 to 39,000 Americans hooked. Some estimates are even higher-20% or more, which means upwards of 50,000 G.I. addicts. Only a small number, about 5,500, have enrolled in the Army's drug-amnesty-rehabilitation program since the first of the year...
...mental habit of reducing plural words to the singular has been evident before. A case in point is "data," beloved of all social scientists. Data no longer are; they is. "The data is incomplete" or "the data is compelling" turns the concept into a kind of glob-a paste or putty that can be applied to any rickety argument. The origin, quality and meaning of the individual figures are easily forgotten; one data is as good as another data...
During World War II, the U.S. acquired a mental habit of considering itself nearly omnipotent and the defender of freedom all over the globe. This self-image carried over into the cold war, when U.S. power was needed to halt Communist expansionism. That stance is no longer possible because reality has changed; the U.S. no longer has a nuclear monopoly, its economic resources have limits, and other nations do not necessarily agree with the U.S. definition of freedom or the good life. Moreover, Communism has become fissiparous and more amenable to negotiated détente...
Israeli Consul General Ephraim Elrom, 58, a man of habit, was late for lunch. Disturbed, his wife Else phoned his Istanbul office. "Something's wrong," she said. "Ephraim is always so punctual...