Word: burnishing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...seven-quarter-long profit slide. When dozens of Belgian schoolchildren fell sick after drinking Coke products last June, Ivester maintained what looked like an arrogant silence for more than a week before traveling to Belgium to apologize. (The incident resulted in a 65 million-can recall.) Nor did he burnish his company's image by failing to promote Carl Ware, senior vice president for African operations, Coke's top black executive, during a high-level shuffle in October--an omission that sent Ware to the exits even as four past and present black employees were suing Coca-Cola for alleged...
That hasn't stopped the railing against social promotion by politicians eager to burnish their credentials on public school reform. In January's State of the Union address, President Clinton drew bipartisan applause with his declaration that "all schools must end social promotion." Last month the White House proposed withholding federal money from states that don't come up with plans to end social promotion within four years. In Texas, G.O.P. presidential favorite George W. Bush made the ending of social promotion the centerpiece of his much praised education agenda. His state legislature is expected to approve a bill this...
...inner circle of Mary's friends, a troika who have requested anonymity even as they talk among themselves of a "campaign" to burnish Mary's public image, insist that Steve was having affairs and abusing Mary, mostly verbally but with an occasional shove. (Steve Letourneau and his lawyer turned down several interview requests.) It got to the point that they were barely civil. Therapist Moore says Mary remembered that when she told Steve about her father's cancer, he growled, "What do you want...
Spinning the Crown What's the use of being a monarch if you can't ignore your subjects? First the Queen agreed to pay taxes; now Britain's Royal Family has called in pollsters to help burnish its image...
...traveling aimlessly around Europe, I put down that I was studying French, in which I was fluent. How truthful was that? My daughter rolls her eyes when I order bouf bourguignon. These incidents, embarrassing though they be, fall within the acceptable range of victimless embellishment, those exaggerations that burnish a humdrum existence, amuse our listeners or impress a potential employer. A resume is a sales document, and some puffery is tolerated. Family weddings would be duller if Uncle Joe were limited to the small fish he caught...