Word: meaninglessness
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...logic could be aptly applied to history courses, numbering all American history courses from 10 to 20 and all European history courses from 20 to 40. Applying the same system to courses in other divisions would also help to make more intelligible what is now a confused jumble of meaningless numbers. It is rather stupid, for example, to list Mathematics 1a before Mathematics 2, which is a prerequisite for the former. Would it not be more reasonable to exchange these course numbers? Another improvement that would greatly aid the student in selecting courses would be the addition of more detailed...
...even Franklin Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover or Upton Sinclair or Commander Hayes of the American Legion can hope to supply a cure for our troubles and still cling to the methods of a hundred and fifty years ago!" And I might add Jesse James. But this is utterly meaningless, a mere hodge-podge of names and inconsistencies, mere guesswork. And nothing is said by way of clearing up this hopeless jumble. Or perhaps he was being witty? Further comment needless, such statements as quoted can be most irritating. They are an insult to one's intelligence. They forfeit any claim...
...which is the same one that best characterizes the Legionnaires view on the bonus question, incidentally. The naive commander who is such an expert at catchwords is wise enough not to attempt to define what is un-Americanism; for it is a word terrible in proportion as it is meaningless. Mr. Hayes deserves notice for attacking the Communist Menace; certainly neither a majority of Americans or Legionnaires desire Communism in this country. The Legionnaires might consent if they did all the sharing; but because it does not look as if this would be likely, they are opposed to Communism...
...Harvard's James Bryant Conant: There is a great danger that at times of crisis like the present we shall disappear under a welter of words used in a perfectly meaningless manner: psychology, integration, relativity, complexes, vitamins, service-you have all heard them. Certainly they appeal to the ignorant, but the really educated should be proof against them...
Corey starts out with the present "Crisis," in the face of which he finds what he calls "Niraism" (the New Deal) helpless and meaningless except insofar as it serves to call in the State to bolster up a sagging economic order. Working backward, he considers the "Golden Age" which he insists was by no means everybody's boom. Farmers were excluded and "real" wages remained practically stationary by holding their own with rising prices, no more. But profits increased enormously. These profits were appropriated by "the owners of the means of production" and since they could not be "consumed...