Word: pointlessness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...must suffer through the three-hour Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Much of the agony stems from the exaggerated belief of many students that their S.A.T. scores will determine whether they get into the college of their choice-or even any college at all. For the most part, the pain is pointless. A number of educators now contends that the tests are an imprecise indicator of future success-and colleges are relying on them less and less in picking their freshman classes...
Eight divisions and 70% of air strength were taken from the Italian campaign and diverted to a pointless landing in the south of France; this meant the end of hopes for an Allied occupation of Austria and influence in the Balkans. Macmillan mournfully charges that the Roosevelt policy, designed, with Stalin, to keep the Allies in the West, was "to exercise a baneful, and nearly fatal influence over the future of Greece." He notes that the postwar burden of correcting this "almost unilateral American decision [has] fallen largely on the American people . . . Thus were sown the seeds of the partition...
...Clyde also stirred up a battle among movie critics that seemed to be almost as violent as the film itself. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was so offended by it that he reviewed it-negatively-three times. "This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste," he wrote. TIME'S review made the mistake of comparing the fictional and real Bonnie and Clyde, a totally irrelevant exercise. Newsweek panned the film, but the following week returned to praise...
...rapidly dawned on the demonstrators that it was cruel and pointless to harrass Leavitt. When one shouted amidst a volley of questions, "Don't badger him," the mood of the protesters literally shifted instantaneously to one of warmth and sympathy. Someone offered Leavitt a Harvard lunch bag, which he would accept only after it had been pushed at him several times. That ended a very distinct phase in the demonstration--the vent your Vietnam venom on Leavitt stage. Leavitt had personally proved to be a lousy symbol of the war machine...
...would be almost pointless to draw parallels between Nat Turner's rebels and the black revolutionists of 1967 because, in Styron's words, the slaves existed in "hopelessly oppressed conditions" whereas blacks now have some political power and consciousness...