Word: utilitarian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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They pursued the simple principle that every object can have an ideal form which, with economy and grace, can express its function. Through centuries of trial & error many of man's simplest tools −the ax helve, the plowshare, the ox yoke −had achieved a utilitarian perfection of design. In essence, industrial design was a brave attempt to bring the same simplicity to all the goods and tools of modern living. The depression, when industrialists were willing to try anything to boost sales, gave the designers their first big chance to show what they could...
Even today, Dr. Codellas points out, the pellets would "merit respect" on a "nutritional and utilitarian" basis. The honey gives carbohydrates, and, with the sesame oil, takes care of caloric values. Protein from the sesame supplies the nitrogen need of the body, the squill serves as a mild heart stimulant, and the opium deadens the stomach's hunger pains...
...Finally," Joad concludes, "such a course has been known to give men a serenity of outlook. It may not in our present age be the best dividend-payer from the purely utilitarian standpoint, but this at least may be said of it, that it sometimes enables men to despise the wealth that it prevents them from acquiring...
Under the Robes. It was a court in shirtsleeves. There was nothing about it that was austere or remote. It was earnestly social-minded, close to workaday problems, generally measured its decision by the utilitarian yardstick of "the greatest good for the greatest number." The Nine were no respecters of economic and business traditions...
What is the aim to be sought in creating a memorial? The feeling which should be sought is one of reflex action on the spirit of the beholder, to awaken a vital, motivating incentive to higher and nobler sacrificial patriotic living. The utilitarian type, with its appeal chiefly to the physical senses, fails completely to touch the realm of the spirit. Is there any more "practical" or more "useful" ambition than to aim to consummate a memorial so designed and so executed as to keep over before the senses of passers-by the devotion to duty of those we seek...