JUST ONE WORD

With commencement season having run its course, with The Graduate celebrating the 30th anniversary of its 1967 release, with seemingly the entire plastics industry having convened in Chicago last month for the triennial national plastics exposition--talking point: graffiti-resistant stop signs incorporating innovative plastics technology were only one of more than a thousand new products on display at the exposition--it seems like the perfect time to revisit what is arguably the most famous single-word line of dialogue in movie history, "Rosebud" excepted.

The scene, in case you've forgotten, goes like this: at a party celebrating his graduation from college, Benjamin Braddock, the...