Word: partings
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...traveled 800 miles to groove on three days of peace and music at "History's Biggest Happening"-a short journey to become a small part of history...
...larger scale, though, the persistent growth of euphemism in a language represents a danger to thought and action, since its fundamental intent is to deceive. As Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf has pointed out, the structure of a given language determines, in part, how the society that speaks it views reality. If "substandard housing" makes rotting slums appear more livable or inevitable to some people, then their view of American cities has been distorted and their ability to assess the significance of poverty has been reduced. Perhaps the most chilling example of euphemism's destructive power took place in Hitler...
Lexicographer Bergen Evans of Northwestern University believes that euphemisms persist because "lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable." It is virtuous, but a bit beside the point, to contend that lies are deplorable. So they are; but they cannot be moralized or legislated away, any more than euphemisms can be. Verbal miasma, when it deliberately obscures truth, is an offense to reason. But the inclination to speak of certain things in uncertain terms is a reminder that there will always be areas of life that humanity considers too private, or too close to feelings of guilt, to speak...
...most part, freshmen tend to concentrate on the junior college girls that Boston seems to soak up like a thirsty, sanitary napkin. Many of these girls, needless to say, are not known for being intellectually topheavy. But, if one's just looking for a little something to help him keep in practice, the i. c. girl is always there on a Saturday night...
...this essay (from the French, essai, to try, test) has officially degenerated into a morass of egocentric affectations and Harvardian putdowns. It's the thing you've got to watch out for here. For I haven't told you about how Harvard tears you apart, because that is the part that is difficult to tell. (See John Updike's short story "The Christian Roommates" in his collection The Music School or, on a once-removed level read John Berth's The End of the Road. ) Despite, or maybe because of, our spurious elitism, we are an insecure bunch. Harvard...