Word: trivialize
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Question: When is the pursuit of trivia not trivial...
Answer: When a gang of three Canadians converts this curious hankering after the piffling and the piddling into the hottest game in town. The game in question is called Trivial Pursuit, and for more and more people across the U.S. and Canada the game offers not just the pursuit of happiness but happiness achieved...
...Times and write a column on it. "Yes," Shalit replied, "I think I've read that one." Are we reading an expanded version of that now? To some extent, yes, this is an ego trip with Buckley showing he can write out even his life's most trivial details and still (best) sell them. But even with its incessant name-dropping ("it would be unusual if I hadn't seen a great deal of Ronald Reagan")--Overdrive offers a rare glimpse into the mind and values of one of America's most influential conservatives...
Without attempting to, the political scientists diagnosed a classic perversity of Washington. The dialogue and mood of the capital are often controlled by the 50,000 men and women who work as lobbyists, legislative aides and journalists. They are nurtured, entertained, and often guided by trivial events and gossip. Many of the 15,000 lobbyists get paid on the basis of their access to White House staff and congressional leaders; every scrap of capital intelligence has outsize value to them. The Congress is now freighted with 20,000 employees, many of whom spend their time plotting how to help...
...both the State Department and the CIA. Indeed, the maneuvers appear to have been prompted primarily by simple impatience to do something dramatic. It is indicative of the problem that what turned out to be the spectacularly maladroit timing of the start of the maneuvers was dictated by a trivial consideration: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger thought that diverting the aircraft carrier Ranger to the Nicaraguan coast from a scheduled cruise to the Far East would save fuel...