Word: customs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Whether Hindu, Moslem or follower of virtually any other religion, India's father of the bride teeters close to bankruptcy. A moneylender's dream, he is forced by custom to fork over a huge dowry for his daughter, start paying off every member of the bridegroom's family with lavish presents of cash and sweetmeats as soon as the engagement is announced. The ideal wedding must be a stunningly beautiful rite that lasts for days, with thousands of gaily colored electric-light bulbs adorning the house, an ornate marquee and a team of cooks to gorge scores...
...Latin American custom, any graduate of a law school may use the title doctor...
...belated bow to 20th century custom, the Church of England Assembly voted to institute a 24-hour information service, thus spare the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, who democratically answers his own phone at Lambeth Palace even in countless wee-hours calls. "When the telephone rings at midnight," asked one assembly delegate, "is it resented as an intrusion on one's sleep or welcomed as an opportunity to spread the Gospel?" Said the Archbishop forthrightly: "At Lambeth it is resented...
...numerous activities guarantee an "out" for the unsophisticated freshman, unable to adjust to three compulsive days with a slight acquaintance, and to the upperclassman who finds himself paired off with a "turkey." The large number of blind dates leads to the barbarous custom of "shooting down"; i.e., ditching a date for someone else's or for a stray male or female. Nevertheless, most people don't object, at least not openly, and everyone seems to be having...
...attacked Yugoslavia and the U.S. in terms far more bitter than Khrushchev's, and defended China's people's communes as "the best form for developing socialism under Chinese conditions." At the close, Khrushchev threw his arms round the speaker and, according to an old Russian custom, kissed him three times. It was, said a Soviet reporter, "as if not just two men but two great brotherly people had embraced." But Chou himself was forced to render tribute to Khrushchev for his "correct leadership" as a party theorist. About one new idea from the busy brain...