Word: hunker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...only Hispanics, of course, who are tempted to hunker down in an insular subculture. "In the summer," says Emmanuel Pratsinakis, a Greek Orthodox priest in Briarwood, Queens, "the air is full of the sound of children shouting in Greek. This community gives a feeling of security." "Polish Greenpoint is comfortable, familiar," says Ponanta, the typesetter. "You stay as long as you need to, then move out to Queens, to Manhattan." Assimilation still seems inexorable. "We want to be part of American culture," says Richard Ou of Flushing. The Russian New Yorkers may keep eating piroshki forever, but, says Sima Blokh...
...have done it in the past," she explains, "only because there was so much talk about it and it was kind of ridiculed." Campaigning last year seemed to convince her that she can venture out alone without making costly faux pas. She has learned to resist her tendency to hunker down and hide. These days, she says jauntily, "Ronnie always complains that when I go places and come back I never tell him anything--that he has to hear it from other people...
...view of history is very dim. John Kennedy back in 1961 loaded up the Marines and primed the Navy's airplanes and sent the Seventh Fleet into the South China Sea to hunker near Laos and impress the Communist Pathet Lao, which was gobbling up the country with Moscow's encouragement. The Marines never got into combat, but the display of force helped bring some allies to our side and finally produce a vague standoff in the battle...
...even the best programs break the mold; they only burnish it. The shows that hunker down on the middle ground content themselves with switching standard characters and stories around, rearranging furniture in an old house that actually needs razing, not redecoration. Giving the stalwart Brian Dennehy a hunky dimwit (Michael Dudikoff) for a teen-age son and a young daughter (Kathy Maisnik) who is enjoying some success as a country-and-western singer does not make him measurably less like Archie Bunker, even if his brains are heavier and his social conscience a little lighter. In Star of the Family...
With their huge military wherewithal, the logistical advantage of a common 1,050-mile border, and few or no political repercussions to worry about on the home front (the Kremlin need not fear that Moscow State University undergraduates will start burning their draft cards), the Soviets can hunker down for a long time in Afghanistan, fortifying enclaves and forgetting about pacifying the countryside. As the Afghan army continues to hemorrhage, the Soviets may feel that they have no choice but to take over more and more of the burden of the fighting. Thus the day recedes when they can pull...