Word: discern
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...first two acts, the most conscientious playgoer will be hard put to discern any guiding purpose in the play. It follows the Book of Genesis straightforwardly, except for the injection of delicatessen humor. This is unfortunate on two counts. For one, Broadwayese does not mesh properly with the King James English that is inflectively present in the text. More important, Miller is leading from weakness; humor has never been his forte...
...tasting was divided into two parts. In the first, four pairs of French wines and California wines of comparable price and similar grape variety were pitted against each other. The board was not told which wines were French and which American-and several of them could not always discern the difference. In the second tasting, the board evaluated eight California wines. Here are the results; prices cited are those common in New York City...
Shattered by that kind of accusation, a husband may try to repair his ego by a daring act of air piracy-at the same time symbolically getting back at other members of his family. Observes Hubbard: "It is not difficult to discern the delight they experienced when they approached little sister-mother stewardess, gun in hand, and said, 'Honey, we're going all the way -to Cuba,' and the sense of power they derived from making daddy (flying the plane) stay put, making him permit the abuse of sister-mother, and forcing him to perform the bidding...
...employment quotas, a practice that President Nixon says he rejects. Hodgson asserts that the Administration is merely setting "goals." For many businessmen, faced with relentless Government pressure to hire precise numbers of certain minority-group members, the distinction between goals and quotas is often difficult to discern...
...periods of Haydn, Beethoven, and Berg. The problem obviously in not an easy one; as Szell put it, "the borderline is very thin between clarity and coolness, self-discipline and severity." Nevertheless, to appeal only to the listener's 'gut reactions,' (however tastefully) and his ability to discern technical proficiency, is to offer, unnecessarily, something less than the fullest possible musical experience...