Word: habitant
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Maybe because we idealize bright summer more than any other season, its darkness takes us by surprise, like finding a spider in your sandal. Savoring summer is a habit tattooed from childhood, along with sunburn scars and callused heels and memories of original sins, a first beer smuggled behind the grandstand, cigarettes sneaked in the woods, curfews broken because it's too hot to sleep. The flip side of summer freedom is anarchy, the structures of school and work melted into casual Fridays and long weekends spent playing on grass now baked to beige by drought...
...wear the Capri pants that you have to constantly pull out of your rear? Why not shorts? -Sara Norm, Chicago [Laughs.] It's not the fault of the clothes. It's a habit that I picked up when I was competing when I was young. I am trying to break the habit, but it's not easy...
Come August, Russians brace for trouble. This has become a habit since August 1991, when hard-liners attempted an abortive coup to squash Russia's budding democracy. It was in August 2000 that the Kursk submarine sank, and the Ostankino TV tower in Moscow caught fire. It was in August 1999 that apartment houses were bombed in Moscow, the second Chechen war started, and the political fervor it stirred helped usher Vladimir Putin to the presidency...
...rather, a bad influenza. And it isn't just the "fat flu" you can catch from friends. Good friends enable all manner of bad habits, even when they're doing nothing at all. Around friends, we slip back into regional accents we've spent years trying to exorcise--redneck recidivism--or embroider our speech with the kind of epic profanity more common to 19th century lobstermen. (That's the bad habit I revert to around my friends, all of whom swear like Friars Club roastmasters...
...With taxes representing nearly 80% of the price of every packet of cigarettes sold, why doesn't France legalize marijuana to claim a similar revenue slice? Because, as with tobacco and alcohol, cannabis sales are hottest among young people, who by developing the habit earlier will find kicking it harder to do. The French study found that nearly 50% of 17-year-olds reported having smoked dope at least once in their lives; nearly one third admitted having done so in the preceding month, and 16% cited regular or daily use. Average age for first use, meanwhile, is just over...