Word: claptrap
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that makes Purdy a moving and an effective narrator. That Purdy's sincerity can become overbearing, that it can devolve into sentimentalism, is acceptable collateral damage, an occupational hazard of writing from the heart. It is one of the occupational hazards of being a resentful book reviewer and a claptrap ironist, it seems, that Hodge has become unable to read from the same place...
While Congress remains bitterly divided along party lines on other issues, opposition to climate-change initiatives has surprisingly broad support on both sides of the aisle. Some lawmakers dismiss worries about global warming as little more than "liberal claptrap," as California Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher puts it. Others interpret the climate moves as a sly attempt by the Administration to enact by bits and pieces what the Senate declared it would not do when it voted 95-0 to oppose the Kyoto treaty, an international pact to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that is strongly supported by Vice President Al Gore...
...left Tony a little bitter. In an interview with the British tabloid News of the World, Hopkins announced he was "getting out of this ridiculous business," adding that "acting is bad for the mental health." Once a mainstay of Merchant-Ivory productions, Hopkins has more recently appeared in such claptrap as the critically reviled Meet Joe Black. He says his project Titus Andronicus, currently filming in Rome, will be his last (his publicist confirmed his words but expressed hope that he would change his mind). In the interview Hopkins also revealed that his 25-year marriage is not preventing...
...push for men to express their feelings presumes that we have feelings, and we do have a few, but they remain submerged, and the airing of them often violates their authenticity. We are, as a gender, as dull as we seem. Contrary to the claptrap of the men's movement, men gain power through not talking. "The strength of the genie," said poet Richard Wilbur, "comes from being in a bottle." I'm no biologist, but my guess is that the male human animal was programmed for silence. One can make us talk counter to our genetic makeup...
...this fall. SmithKline Beecham (Tagamet HB, Contac, NicoDerm CQ) test marketed herbs in four U.S. cities last summer. The entry of these brands and the growing body of serious research on herbal remedies are lifting some of the stigma attached to these products--and cutting through some of the claptrap one can still hear about mystical recoveries in many a juice bar or organic grocery...