Word: lameness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Victorian writers, observed G.K. Chesterton, "were lame giants; the strongest of them walked on one leg a little shorter than the other." That remark has been amplified by Phyllis Rose in her lively study of five 19th century couples. The title, Parallel Lives, has two meanings: the disparate views of marriage held by husband and wife, and the juxtaposition of twittering romantic expectations and tragic neuroses. Reading Rose's work is like turning a valentine to find graffiti underneath: not a pleasant experience, but a compelling one. The couples could not have been better chosen. Each contains one famous...
...peep has been heard from Washington about the murder of Firmin Joseph. President Reagan still plans to visit Marcos in November, and presumably will praise him as a staunch upholder of democratic principles. Lame requests for the men who murdered Orlando Letelier continue, along with new rounds of economic and military aid. In Manila, in Brooklyn and in Washington, everything is under control. Don Corleone would be green with envy...
...free when space is available. Other abuses, says Congress Watch, include taking far more members and staff than are necessary to accomplish the stated purpose of a trip, lavish use of "food and refreshment" money supplied by military escorts and embassy personnel to the delegations, and excessive travel by lame-duck members...
...avoid backfires like 1958's lame Edsel, named after Henry Ford II's father, or the Studebaker Dictator, a model introduced in 1927 but discontinued in 1936 as jackboots began marching across Europe, car manufacturers today are careful and scientific in their selections. Ford polled 600 consumers in shopping malls to help choose Tempo and Topaz to evoke the right image for its new compact models. The company rejected nominees like Coventry, Serval and Majestic. NameLab, a San Francisco firm, employed a computer to help christen Nissan's new Sentra. The coined word derives from sentry, which...
...pair of comedies dominate the late-summer box office. National Lampoon's Vacation is a lame, hard-to-sit-through farce starring Chevy Chase as a food-additives specialist who takes his '50s sitcom family on a calamitous cross-country car trip. The other hit, Paul Brickman's Risky Business, is yet another entry in the lamentable tits-and-zits genre of teen-age sex comedies: a young man finds love and success by becoming a pimp. Still, this film is deftly made, the humor nicely understated, the leading actors (Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay) smart...