Word: hobgoblin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...true nature of the research. On the other hand, Smith says, to inform the parents fully of aberrant behavior they allegedly could anticipate is equally unethical and unfair to an innocent child. Such behavior patterns have not been documented, and saddling a child's parents with such a hobgoblin might only be, as even Walzer conceded in a grant application, "detrimental to the child's development." Parents overconcerned with their boy's manifestations of deviance might only insure that such deviance would appear, hopelessly prejudicing the findings of the scientists who come around twice a year to interview the family...
...most menacing hobgoblin to the student protestors was the marginal category. Originally billed by the faculty as a warning to only those students who wee on the verge of failure, the marginal rank had been stretched by some graders to include one-sixth of the class...