Werther effect
n.— «Experts say the sometimes graphic reporting may have triggered a “Werther effect”—the term sociologists coined to refer to a surge in suicides in Europe after publication of Goethe’s tragic novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther”» —“S.Korea grasps for ways to tackle surge in suicides” by Kim Kyoung-wha Reuters Jan. 12, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...