Word: vulgarism
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...foreign commerce in such articles or knowledge. The effect has been to limit their manufacture, sale and the giving of information to individual States. Nineteen States have clear and definite legislation essentially similar to the Federal statutes. Twenty-five other States have more ambiguous laws relating to "obscene, vulgar and indecent" objects or written matter of "immoral purpose." Four States?Georgia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina? have no legislation on birth control. One State?Connecticut?goes the limit, no exceptions, even to prohibiting the use of any "drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception...
Then there are a few excellent descriptions, a few good character analyses. The rest is commonplace; a matter-of-fact and generally uninteresting story of a generally uninteresting life. There is too much detail--vulgar detail, frequently--and an almost morbid view of life at times...
Israel Zangwill, Anglo-Jewish poet-author: "I made speeches in Manhattan. Said I: 'There is very little of honor, justice or dignity in this country as compared with England. You are also vulgar. . . . You have no shame, no sense of humor. . . . The opinion of a prize- fighter is sought regarding the merits of a judge to be elected and is printed in four-pound superlative waste in your papers...
...yarns with the greatest relish. He enjoys the working out of detail; but he enjoys most of all the underlying grip which any good story must possess. No amount of artistry can make a story if it has not an emotional basis. There is a good vulgar word which describes the quality of which I am speaking. Wallace Irwin has it in his writing, so too have Harold Bell Wright, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens? and the word is guts! You may not like it?but I can think of no other word which so completely expresses what I mean...
...drama? Abe and Mawruss-toned down to the flat black-and-whiteness of the screen? It sounds as mournful as a sixth class French funeral, doesn't it? But, strangely enough, it isn't. Even shorn of actual speech Abe and Mawruss remain uproariously funny - the same vulgar, unctuous incredible immortals they were when they first sprang twin-Minervas of the cloak-and-suit trade from the brain of Montague Glass. The plot more or less follows the outline of the first Potash and Perlmutter play. Rosie is there-and Feldman the unscrupulous lawyer-and Irma Potash...