Word: trait
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Gusto is not a common characteristic of present-day writers. Their most notable common trait is resignation-a resignation that sometimes dresses itself up in a splendid refusal to surrender, a defiant rejection of the unconditional terms that life demands. Hemingway, Faulkner, Graham Greene, J. P. Marquand, Elizabeth Bowen, Evelyn Waugh-they all record, in their various manners, the hopeless valor, the quiet desperation of a rearguard action, a doomed though indomitable next-to-last stand...
...with the protection of some dogma--everything from. The Faith to The American Way of Life. It is disappointing therefore to find that what was once a flexible concept, tolerance, has joined the censor's list of sacrosanct doctrines. We have no quibble with advocating tolerance, a trait which many Americans lack, but lately groups like the NAACP have shorn it of much of its richest meaning. Time was when tolerance meant permitting anyone to sample whatever was thrust before him, providing that this fare was not prejudicial to the rights and privileges that a democracy ensures everyone else...
...Study Trait...
...control group served as a yard stick against which the delinquests could be measured. Delinquents are often termed "deviates", but it is necessary to know what they deviate from. Otherwise a seemingly abnormal trait which may be seized upon as a dramatic explanation of the origin of delinquency may be present in like manner among non-deltaquents and therefore when regarding cause and effect, must be considered neutral...
From the moment he arrived in the U.S. from New Malden, Surrey two years ago, a 42-year-old Briton named William George Philpot began wondering what he could do about an American trait that bothered him. At every traffic light someone behind him honked a horn. Five weeks ago in Detroit, Philpot ordered a metal sign. He bolted it to the rear of his car and set forth. The honking stopped. Last week, as a final test, he drove through clangorous Manhattan. Even there, the sign worked. Philpot sighed with relief, and set out in his self-made zone...