Word: sham
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...correct the deficiencies that show up in the prototypes, British aircraft "boffins," i.e., chairborne scientists, try to cover up to save costly redesigning. Despite the industry's often brilliant performance at Britain's annual Farnborough air show, Waterton points out that the show is "a lot of sham." The aircraft entered are often prototypes, years from the production line and often perilously undertested. Says he: "It is a miracle that there are not mass disasters at Farnborough every year...
Constructive Critic. In Brameld's eyes, "the people" do not run the nation−they only think they do. The real rulers make up a Veblenesque minority that controls communications as well as the sources of wealth and power. Education, therefore, must pierce this sham; it must teach the majority how to find out what it really wants and then put those wants into effect. Education is "the learning of cooperative methods for attaining objectives upon which the widest possible majority of the people, young and old, can agree...
...Khrushchev indictment means that Russia's entire postwar "peace" campaign was a sham, that Stalin was the aggressor in every cold-war episode. In Korea, said Khrushchev, "Stalin personally ordered the attack to begin," When word of all that gets out, Italian Communists are apt to feel even more buggerato...
...sputters indignantly, "to be aloof from." That, as every moviegoer will recognize, is the cue for girl to meet boy. And the minute Dan Dailey comes scuffing onscreen with an I'11-always-be-a-boy-at-heart sort of grin that richly expresses the sham in the shamrock, Actress Charisse has plenty to be aloof from. He grabs her hand in a casino, holds it for good luck -and wins three times in a row. This, of course, is the start of a love affair as well as a bank account. However, the grimly spontaneous kissing sometimes makes...
...phonetic change from the "s" to the "sh" sound is contemporary and popular as shmmo, schlamiel, sham. Synonyms are glop, shmo, jerk, goof, sad sack, "Marty," poorish...