Word: downplay
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...several Twitterers suspect that the Nobel Prize may hinder Obama from doing just that by galvanizing his opponents at home and ratcheting up the unrealistic expectations he's been trying to downplay since he entered the White House. Here's @alexevansuk again: "I can hardly wait for reactions on US conservative blogs." Another Twitter regular says, "If the Nobel Committee deliberately set out to sabotage Obama, they couldn't have done it better." Actually, that was me. I'm sure many others will have made much the same point by now. Twitter often reminds users how many different viewpoints there...
...American capitalism, one wonders why an author with such a nuanced command of language would resort to clichés so elementary in composition. Volpi rounds out his scattered and unsatisfying account of 20th century history with a flurry of fictional accidents and tragedies that he seems to downplay as simple “proof of the irrationality of the future, the name we humans give to entropy.” Perhaps Volpi diminishes the significance of his character’s individual tragedies for the very purpose of making his point, but his failure to give us any reason...
...Obama overruled them. "The President has a big megaphone, and he intends to use that megaphone," senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News of the decision to go ahead on Sept. 9, 16 years to the month after Bill Clinton tried to do the same thing. (White House officials downplay any Clinton comparison and point out that they are far closer now to the goal line than Clinton was - or, for that matter, than any Democratic President has ever been. The bill has already passed three committees in the House and one in the Senate...
...Then how did the exercise-to-lose-weight mantra become so ingrained? Public-health officials have been reluctant to downplay exercise because those who are more physically active are, overall, healthier. Plus, it's hard even for experts to renounce the notion that exercise is essential for weight loss. For years, psychologist Kelly Brownell ran a lab at Yale that treated obese patients with the standard, drilled-into-your-head combination of more exercise and less food. "What we found was that the treatment of obesity was very frustrating," he says. Only about 5% of participants could keep the weight...
...that sounded ominous, it was. In April, just a couple of months into CNPC's operations in Ahdab, power lines and equipment were sabotaged and stolen. Ministry and government officials downplay the April upheaval. Provincial authorities claim they have arrested a handful of vandals, who apologized and were released. Mahmoud Abdul Ridha, the head of the province council, chalked it up to a misunderstanding and said a committee has been formed for jobs and compensation. But some locals are still angry. Says Abu Koraichi, 58, a farmer in Alsabah village, "The sons and people of our villages will not stop...