Word: reflexively
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mouth. A student had lately been killed by a young mugger for saying exactly the same thing, but in that case, apparently, the suggestion came out as a kind of derisive irony. His own words, he knew with shame, had held no irony. They were, in fact, a reflex, an example of sheer, dumb middle-class helpfulness. He found himself actually blushing at the thought of having spoken them...
...coat had a special change pocket cut laterally into the button flap. It was small, but large enough for a tiny, hammerless handgun he owned and sometimes, to his wife's horror, threatened to license and carry. In an instant, he moved his hand and, in a theatrical reflex, leveled a pointing finger at the retreating shapes. With the gun in hand, he knew, knew, he would have fired. Aiming for the legs. But he certainly could have killed them both for their disdain...
...forebears took decades to develop. When the American Civil War was over, Walt Whitman lamented: "My enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead." With enemies like that, who needs friends! This is the danger of applying conscience to what ought to be conducted by naked reflex. It is benumbing to consider how many perfectly good enmities have been ruined by the imposition of gentleness, fatigue or common sense...
...situations like these students apparently respond to the regulations of Harvard's academic "stars." But applause doesn't seem reserved only for well known faculty personalities and at times students and faculty say, it appears to be nothing but a reflex action. "Everyone else does it appears to be nothing but a reflex action. "Everyone else does it and I'm a conformist," says one student another admits, "I've been drawn into...
...founding editor of PEOPLE. Wrapped around the listings will be up to 32 pages of news, profiles and features "strongly pegged to that week's programs," Burgheim added. "There may be critics or columnists, but the staff will be young, of the TV generation, less snobbish than the reflex print writer reacting to television...