Word: plummet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...blotted out by plumes of smoke from the vast conflagrations in which the major cities of the Northern Hemisphere have been consumed. This thick veil of soot and dust slowly circulates through various layers of the atmosphere, blanketing entire continents, creating a world of frigid darkness. As ground temperatures plummet by as much as 40° F and the sun is obscured, crops in Iowa, Nebraska and the Ukraine in the Soviet Union perish...
Ships do not sail, they ply the waters. Hookers do not sell, they ply their trade. Airplanes do not fall, they plummet...
...incentives for actively moral behavior. Almost everyone would hand in their papers on time if they received a gold star by their names in the gradebook. How about a Harvard Scouts program, with merit badges for cleanliness, obedience, and hair length (no long sideburns!). Alcohol and drug use would plummet, and we'd completely eliminate those radical fringe types. We would build a community of upstanding young men and women, who would depart Harvard eager to serve better their country and their kind...
...Whitehall, Pa. After quitting school at 14, he went to work in a St. Louis foundry for 250 an hour, became an active unionist who rose through the ranks and survived a bitter insurgency fight to inherit I.W. Abel's mantle only to see the Steelworkers' membership plummet by half during his term from a 1979 high of 1.4 million...
Many farmers are economically shattered or simply unemployed. The estimated average annual income of working members of farming families is expected to plummet from $10,500 last year to $2,000. Ranchers' problems are in turn spilling over to related businesses. Austin Ryan, who sells rural machinery in Warracknabeal, Victoria, has cut his staff from 28 to three. Kevin Webb of Leeton, New South Wales, who is accustomed to selling up to 320 bins of wheat a season, has sold only four this year. Small outposts, which have no source of revenue outside of farming, may vanish altogether...