Word: yearbooks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...third good thing about the Yearbook is its freedom from error. Its president has proudly pointed out that all of the polls add up to 100%, a welcome innovation. That the figures in the polls do not always match the figures in the stories on the polls is probably only the work of feverish imagination. Even the spelling of Agassiz with two g's, the description of Radcliffe girls as "winsome," and the reference to the maternal types in the Union as Frauleins should be considered only quirks of whimsy...
...this humor, no matter how accidental, is certainly needed, for the Yearbook otherwise manages only a dull accuracy. No one particularly wants the slapstick which often clutters high school annuals (and indeed appears in a few of 321's captions--e.g. "Radcliffe girl with lab assistant: Using curves of eyebrows to raise the curve"). No one wants clown shots or old-new gimmicks, and we should be grateful that 321 avoids them. But the undergraduate and even Mother, would like a little humor. And 321 provides none, even when it is there to be shaken ripe from the limb...
...thirteen percent directed by "libidinous impulses, another word for raw sex." This sort of childishness suggests that the Yearbookmen are not really quite sure for whom they are writing. Indeed, it is a problem whether they should aim at the Senior or at Mother. But in either case, the Yearbook ought to be able to assume that its readership includes neither the feeble nor the aged...
...style of the Yearbook seems not to be aimed at the even faintly literate reader, its content seems no to be directed at all. The polls are typical of the general inconclusiveness of the whole publication: their summary--"How, then, do we characterize the subject of our poll? ... He is as radical as he is conservative, as intense as he is unconcerned. We are left not with the portrait of a figure but the canvass of an experience..." Considering the construction of the polls, no other conclusion could possibly have been reached. Its subjects range from "Where is your home...
Many of the question, of course, are just stupid. Many important questions are not asked; although the Yearbook is interested in numbers of future progeny, it could not care less about future vocations. Absurd questions, which could have been answered freshman year (where is home, family income, reasons for coming) take the place of questions which could only be answered, if at all, by Seniors. Some of the right questions are asked, of course, but in a way which allows all significance to escape with a quiet hiss. Seniors are asked whether they believe that labor unions have become...