Word: prurient
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Some dyspeptic Iroquois brave named it "Se-rach-to-que," which has been translated as "Floating Scum upon the Water." Among dip-minded suburban housewives it enjoys minor fame as the birthplace of the potato chip. James Gordon Bennett was moved to entitle it "the seraglio of the prurient aristocracy." To the rheumy rich of the '90s it was "The Spa," and its eggy sulphur waters were just the ticket for constipation and gout. But now the seltzer baths belong to the state, and for eleven months out of the year Saratoga Springs (pop. 16,000) is a quiet...
...United States Supreme Court has held that the test for obscenity is "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest." Said Justice Marks: "The opinions of authors and critics cannot be substituted for those of the average person in the contemporary community. Neither the quality of the writing nor the so-called literary worth of the book prevents the book from being adjudged obscene...
Whatever other publications may say about the Mirror's prurient preoccupations, its editors are well aware that the readers are coming back for more. "Newspapers," says Publisher King in the current issue of the highbrow quarterly, 20th Century, "have helped to create a social atmosphere in which change has become possible. This has been achieved almost exclusively by the popular press, presenting news vividly so that millions who would read nothing else read newspapers...
Rome-and the rest of the world-burned with prurient curiosity. Last week, while unconcernedly directing her lawyer to terminate the services of hangdog Fourth Husband Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, 30, tirelessly sought to turn a more prideful head. Liz's latest quarry, the Mark Antony to her Cleopatra. Richard Burton, seemed cheerfully prepared to indulge her exhibitionistic binges of togetherness on the Via Veneto and to relish his odd-hour neighborly access to her villa. But he was careful to keep the home fires burning with a weekend rendezvous in Paris with Wife Sybil. As the tasteless, tedious...
...this picture, after a run of unsuccessful shows, McCarey has once more called upon religion to perform a commercial miracle; but this time he appears to have used the Lord's name in vain. For all its superficial smirk of piety, McCarey's Satan is just a prurient, soft-soap-and-holy-water version of the spicy story about the lonely missionary and the beautiful native girl...