Word: discerning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...head and feet. The much ballyhooed computer graphics, however, added little to a viewer's understanding. At the opening ceremonies, for example, ABC hurtled graphics maps across the screen to pinpoint where lesser-known countries are situated, but the globes were so minute that it was hard to discern even continents. Some of the prepackaged features, put together in the name of world brotherhood, were embarrassing: John Denver crooned a mawkish ballad at a mass grave for 11,000 victims of the Nazis; and McKay, Frank Gifford and Bob Beattie mugged their way through a mock-boozy time...
...less angry than disheartened, less vengeful than perplexed. Never in my life has even a subtle gesture of anti-Semitism been waged against me. Were the offense flagrant, then my response would be clear. But I can not discern the implications if I can hardly presume the intent. A janitor may have removed it for noncompliance with housing codes, unaware of its significance. Yet, I reject this as unlikely; it was legally hung on poster clay which remains in place, and few janitors would so boldly invade a private doorway. Nor was it a likely candidate for unft...
...FRENCH REVOLUTION is a subject whose innumerable contradictory messages ultimately overwhelm one another. Like the chemical elements in the hands of a skilled chemist, events of the years 1789-1801 can be combined in different ways to create wholly distinct products. A modern day radical could discern in the fall of Maximillien Robespierre the lesson that only unwavering idealism and relentless persecution of reaction can sustain a revolution; a moderate could claim that only the tempering of justice with mercy can save a regime from overthrow...
...college degree from a World War II ace into test flights, Yeager, with his peers, established the exacting, unspoken standards (and style) of test flight in the late '40s. The second book is about the men who came afterward, whose success would be judged by their ability to discern and live up to the credo of the right stuff. Among them were the Mercury astronauts. Goldman saw no dramatically convincing way to contrast the experience and outlook of the two groups, and left the test-flight veterans out of his screenplay...
Scientists have long assumed that stars beyond the sun are the hubs of their own solar systems. Indeed, some of these worlds may include planets where life perhaps has evolved. Yet even the closest stars are too distant for earth-bound telescopes to discern any planets in orbit around them. Indications that Vega, which lies 26 light-years (150 trillion miles) away, has a solar system may be the most important finding so far made by IRAS, a joint effort of the U.S., Britain and The Netherlands that was launched last January. When Astronomers H.H. Aumann of the Jet Propulsion...