Word: pleasant
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Pressler has brought along an inventor named Alexander Hamilton and his homemade "gasohol" still, an odd assemblage of galvanized buckets and tubs and funnels. Hamilton (no kin to the patriot) is a pleasant man with wire-rimmed glasses, mutton-chop whiskers, and the dirty fingernails of a chronic tinkerer. As Pressler watches proudly, Hamilton pours fermented corn mash into his contraption, plugs in an electric cord, and begins adjusting valves. A tiny stream of alcohol squirts into a plastic bucket. The odor of the alcohol mingles in the room with the disquieting scent of dementia...
...expert" in conservation. On Block Island, R.I., where the last sizable stands of trees were cut and sent up the chimney decades ago, some residents are experimenting with drying and burning peat. Mantle kerosene lamps are in fashion through the Northeast: not only is their light soft and pleasant, but the heat they radiate is equal to almost half that of a small electric space heater...
...carry out their threat to put the American hostages on trial. Then, Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda abruptly announced that the Shah would not be allowed to settle in Mexico. It was a stunning turnabout. Only two weeks earlier, Castaneda had promised that the Shah would receive "a pleasant welcome" in Mexico...
Speak & Spell. This cheerful-looking little red box, made by Texas Instruments, signals for attention with a four-note tune when a child (or wondering adult) presses the On button. Then, when the Go button is pressed, the machine says, in a deep, pleasant, male voice, "Spell wash." The child presses W, and the machine pronounces the name of the letter: "Double-you." When the speller finishes punching the letter buttons, he presses Enter, and the machine says, "That is correct. Now spell extra." Or, if the speller has made a mistake, the machine says, "Wrong. Try again." The sentences...
...levels of difficulty. In addition, the machine plays word games, and can put messages into code. (It also spells any word aloud, when the proper buttons are pushed, and children discover quickly that when improper buttons are pushed, bad words are spelled. The shock value is considerable when the pleasant mechanical voice pronounces "Eff, You, See ...") Speak & Spell, which sells for $64.95, was dreamed up by a Texas Instruments products engineer named Paul Breedlove, who had worked in voice synthesis and thought that the concept might be used in a small teaching machine. The speller appeared on the market...