Word: shorthand
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Which is a higher priority for America, making peace in the Middle East or saving jobs at home? That, in extreme shorthand, is the painful quandary facing the White House as it considers the sale of F-15 combat jets to Saudi Arabia. If the U.S. makes the sale, it will contribute to the arms race in the Middle East. If the deal is scuttled, thousands of American aerospace workers could lose their jobs. Postwar tensions in the Middle East and the depressed U.S. defense industry have raised the stakes on both sides...
...record store or listings in a newspaper is music that is not other things--not jazz or rock or folk. But this distinction is not rigid. There are cases, like the Chronos Quartet or George Gershwin, that straddle several of these categories. The word classical is, at best, a shorthand term for a body of music that most people recognize but that nobody can define with absolute precision...
...1980s that understanding of the term seemed to disappear. In the decade's dismissive shorthand, feminism came to mean denigrating motherhood, pursuing selfish goals and wearing a suit. Whereas feminism was hip and fashionable in the '70s, antifeminism became socially acceptable in the '80s. First the fundamentalist right, then the White House -- and ultimately Hollywood, television and many journalists -- held feminism responsible for "every woe besetting women," Faludi writes, "from mental depression to meager savings accounts, from teenage suicides to eating disorders to bad complexions...
Tsongas' befuddlement over his schedule can serve as a metaphor for the plight of his underfunded and ill-organized campaign as it struggles to transform New Hampshire hoopla into a full-throated national crusade. But the where-am-I-going question is also an apt shorthand for the unpredictable Democratic race itself, a bizarre contest that has made political pundits look as reliable as racetrack touts...
...spews platitudes at ethnic voters. The guy who patronizes women on the issue of sexual harassment. The big-city police chief who downplays his department's gang beating of an errant motorist. What don't these folks do? They don't "get it." Suddenly the phrase is everywhere, a shorthand K.O. punch that vaporizes opponents by skewering their lack of social intelligence. And for public figures it can be fatal. If you just don't get it, you're hopelessly out of touch...