Word: overreacted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...such interchanges are "rituals of ratification" intended to assure someone whose status has changed that old relationships will continue as before. These include congratulations at marriage, commiseration at divorce and condolences at death. Similar "reassurance displays" are also made on less momentous occasions. A teenager's friends will overreact to her new shoes: "Oh, let's see them. Oh, they're cute." In conversation, a remark from a bore, no matter how stupefying, may force his companions "to give a sign that he is qualified to speak." A good thing too, says Goffman, for "without such mercies...
...moreover, have the capacity to retaliate massively by knocking out Egypt's rebuilt air force and its missile defenses west of the canal. An all-out Israeli assault would surely kill some of Egypt's Russian military advisers. But the Soviets, Washington feels, are not likely to overreact for fear of a U.S. response...
Minorities in the U.S. are, of course, oppressed and persecuted. But to define this reality in terms of "image," to argue that the use of familiar words describing familiar facts constitutes "persecution," only trivializes the ideals of equality and social justice. When touchy minorities turn hypersensitive and overreact to ethnic slights (some real, some imaginary), they succeed only in transforming tolerance into a subtle new form of hypocrisy, more mouthed piety than reform of the heart...
...Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, did sound one ominous note: long-term effects in children may be serious. In an as yet unpublished study, he reports on eight children. All had a previous history of being timid and nervous, and many of their parents had a "tendency to overreact to the threatening situation." In the wake of the riots, the children's condition grew markedly worse. All were affected by such varying symptoms as fainting spells, asthmatic attacks, and visible tension at the thought of leaving the house. Two children were subject to an increase of grand...
Unquestionably, the situation is serious, but some qualifications are necessary. The economic picture appears bleaker than it really is because the market tends to overreact. It jumps extravagantly when the economy is strong, plunges precipitously when business weakens (and sometimes when it does not). Moreover, the economy has not suddenly run out of steam because of some inexplicable decline of consumer demand. Most of the drops in profits and jobs are the result of a deliberate, managed slowdown...