Word: popularizer
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...transplant surgery becoming more popular? Yes, I think it is. I think it's much more acceptable. You literally cannot tell a patient who has had a hair transplant today. Unlike fifteen years ago, [when] you could always tell because they looked like they had a doll's head or a cornrow on their head...
...their study, Kalist and Lee accumulated all 15,012 names given to the boys born in one large state between 1987 and 1991. (To get the boys' names, the authors had to agree not to reveal the state's name.) The researchers developed an equation that gave the most popular name of the period, Michael, a score of 100. The name David got a 50. Ernest, Preston, Tyrell, Kareem, Malcolm, Alec were each given a 1. Kalist and Lee theorized that the boys with the lower-scoring names might commit more delinquent acts...
Which is exactly what they found. The relationship is quite predictable and linear: if you pick a name that's 10% more popular than Ernest (Maxwell is the example that Kalist gave me), the population of Maxwells will have 3.7% fewer delinquents than the population of Ernests. Pretty neat, right...
...Ruth Handler, an American businesswoman, was vacationing in Switzerland when she came across Bild Lilli, a doll that, unlike popular baby dolls at the time, had long, shapely legs and wore heavy makeup. Lilli, in fact, was based on a prostitute in a postwar German cartoon, but Handler was inspired. She bought three Lilli dolls, returned to California and in 1959 created the world's first Barbie doll...
...Since then, Barbie's parent company Mattel has sold more than 1 billion copies of its hit toy by cultivating its wholesome image, making it as popular with American kids as it is safe for parents. But the toy industry has been changing. Girls are trading in traditional favorites for video games at younger ages while tweens flock to hipper dolls like Bratz, which launched in 2001 and quickly chewed into Barbie's market share. Mattel last year won a copyright-infringement case against Bratz owner MGA Entertainment, but that didn't change the fact that, over the past five...