Word: notion
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Yeagley began with the idea, not original with him, that a homing pigeon is equipped with some sort of "magnetic compasses," i.e , some sensitivity to the earth's magnetism. Yeagley tested this notion by fastening small magnets to the wings of well-trained pigeons. Confused by their own magnetism, most of the birds never got home. Others, carrying equal wing weights of nonmagnetic copper, made the home roost without trouble. The experiment indicated that the earth's magnetism is a factor in pigeon navigation...
Communism, the 20th Century's great myth, has spawned a host of subsidiary myths. Conspicuous among them is the widely peddled notion that Russia's dictatorship of the proletariat has lifted proletarians to new heights of human dignity. The Russian line is: We have liquidated capitalism and thereby ended the exploitation of workers. The reality is that the Soviet economy rests squarely on a base of slave labor and that the Soviet Union is the greatest slave state in history...
...compromise seemed in the wind. But even if none were reached, said the Manchester Guardian judiciously, the results might not be all bad. "Then the notion that a good film must cost more than it can earn at home will have to be deflated. That will do Hollywood no harm and our own industry a power of good...
Pattern in Nanking. Without waiting for Wedemeyer's appraisal, Nanking last week officially buried the notion that the war was going to be won in a matter of weeks or months, or settled by talks around a table. The theme now was "war to the death," as Nanking issued new mobilization edicts covering increased conscription, new taxes, wage and price control. The most optimistic talk was, "victory within a year," with a string...
...notion of defending to the death the rights of swine to swinish, so long as they keep it verbal, is a notion which did very well for the period of English quietism in which it was most popular, but in rough times like the present it is too often an excuse for nonparticipation in public life. The common-garden myth of toleration goes about like this: permitted to express themselves, "extremists" "blow off steam," and are consequently less dangerous; the "extremes" neutralize each other in some way and serve as a means of locating the current Middle Ground, where...