Word: jerk
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Dianne Feinstein most often mentioned as Democratic Veep possibilities: >Patricia Schroeder, 43. A Harvard-trained lawyer and a Congresswoman since 1973, the Coloradan is a leading member of the House Armed Services Committee. While getting high marks for her military expertise, Schroeder is often seen as a knee-jerk dove. She co-chairs the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, which counts 117 men among its 132 members. An outspoken feminist, Schroeder is married to a Washington lawyer and has two teen-age children. Her political profile is left of center: the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (A.D.A.) gives...
...series of grisly deaths. In one notorious incident, Party Member Liu Wenxue enlisted a self-styled witch to exorcise his wife, who had just received hospital treatment for heart disease. The witch proceeded to puncture the woman's nose with a knife, string her up to the ceiling and jerk her neck with a whip. Four days later, the patient died. Liu received only a mild official reprimand...
...part of the century, to his bitter elder years as a rich iconoclast. A historian by profession (at the University of Ohio). Alexander provides a salutary antidote to the normal glowing style of sport biography, making it clear, despite all the sympathy, that in many ways Cobb was a jerk...
While few of Hart's supporters are familiar with his substantive positions in detail, a surprisingly large number mention his approach to the nation's defense as one thing that attracted them. Says Steven Nesich, 30, a marketing consultant from Seattle: "The Reaganites have a knee-jerk reaction to defense: 'Build it.' The liberals have a knee-jerk reaction: 'Don't build it.' Hart sees a leaner, tougher defense that would cost us far less and be more effective...
...TERM can be abused. What is important is not the term, but the situation within which it is expressed. The listener bears as much civic responsibility as the speaker whenever a potentially offensive word or phrase is uttered; knee-jerk reactions can foster unnecessary hostility on occasions when no disparagement was intended...