Word: notionalism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this in context: today's young adults, who grew up amid the debris of an older generation's failed relationships (between the mid-'60s and 1981, the divorce rate more than doubled), are wrestling with the very notion of forever in marriage and finding it unattainable or even suspect. Young couples have not trashed the idea of lifetime partners. Instead, they are creating their own models...
These are just two modern variations on the old-fashioned notion of partners for life. They may be hard for the parents of the two couples and others of their generation to understand. When early boomers and those who came before them marched down the aisle, most assumed their marriage would last; that was the bargain. Whether that ultimately happened or not, today's parents of marriage-age young adults want to see their offspring married happily and long. Many say they are frustrated by how long it's taking their kids to "settle down"--or that they are puzzled...
...less in places like Nigeria and Kenya--compared with an average of $2,485 in developed countries like the U.S. Less than half the people in the area have access to clean water, and just over half of all children are vaccinated against diphtheria, polio and tetanus. The notion that African countries can somehow buy and distribute the expensive drugs that can prolong life for those infected with HIV--even at the drastically subsidized rates that some companies have promised--is farfetched. Beyond that, the illness and death of so many workers is draining what little strength these already weak...
National stereotypes are of course invidious. If Canadians wish to disown Gore, and to repudiate the notion that his personality takes its distinctive resonance from Canadian origins, then that is a decision that must be respected. On the other hand, if Gore were elected president of the U.S, American-Canadian relations might prosper as never before...
...smart. An industrial designer for (Eleven), the Boston-based firm he co-founded, Beck uses design to make products simpler. They may not be quite as racy looking as an iMac or a Beetle, but his sometimes colorful, mostly plastic and almost always sleek creations revive the notion that form should follow function. "Just by looking at something, you should know how it works," he says. "We're stating the obvious all the time." His birdcage, for instance, has a clear plastic front and back and a light, and a wavy perch that, he insists, prevents bird carpal-tunnel syndrome...