Word: blunting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Louis XVI expressed the hope that this was a mere revolt. "No, sir," replied the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "it's a great revolution." For the sake of the House of Windsor, we must trust that those advising the royal family at this unhappy time will also be blunt. The national outpouring of affection and grief for the "people's princess" could be dismissed as a form of collective hysteria that will die away as surely as the echo of muffled funeral bells. No tumbrels loom for a monarchy that still figures centrally in the British psyche...
...worried that Laurent Kabila, the rebel he helped to the country's presidency, was not making quick enough progress in restoring the ruined country. The meeting had all the ceremony of a summit, but it was really an opportunity for Museveni to give his friend some discreet but blunt advice. "They must start to move here," said Museveni afterward. "People expect to see things happening. Kabila wants to help his people, so that's half the battle won. We can help with the rest...
...BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and P.L.O. leader YASSER ARAFAT are still refusing to get off the dime on peace talks by the time she arrives in the Middle East next month, Secretary of State MADELEINE ALBRIGHT plans to give them the not-so-diplomatic treatment she's becoming famous for: a blunt talking-to and a rap on the knuckles. Washington is frustrated with the game of diplomatic chicken that both sides have been playing. In several major speeches, Albright plans to lay out "what road they're headed down" if the talks remain deadlocked, says an official, and "why if they...
...back breakups of 20 years ago arose from the hard-bitten marriages of an earlier time, the current soul searching about divorce owes its existence to the hang-loose '70s. If mistakes have been made, who's to say that we can't learn from them without resorting to blunt reversals of policy and nasty ideological purges? Looked at from ground level, away from the clamor of dueling research studies and butting talking heads, the idea that divorce could prove a friend to marriage has the unlikely ring of truth...
...beautiful things, for lack of a more perfect word, about a conclusion is its fatalism. The writer is perfectly well aware that the end of his or her work is near. Yet he or she perseveres, impelled not merely to state the conclusion to the perfect essay in a blunt regard, but to explicate it fully and thoughtfully, as if he or she were retying the ribbon on an unwrapped package. The contents of said package have, of course, been revealed. The reader must, however, be fully alerted to the existence of its contents...