Word: faintness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that it could "press" its view on any significant issue. The best it could do is "state" its view on the South African situation, and hope people listen, especially the Black South Africans. The question remains: Will the University whisper or shout? So far we have heard only a faint whimper...
...quietly offering price cuts that could include a $3-per-bbl. drop for its Arab light crude, to $25. Saudi Arabia has been virtually the last OPEC member to stand firmly by the group's official prices. The country's large discount would further reduce the organization's already faint voice in setting global petroleum prices...
...sliding out a drawer, "is absolutely priceless." The item at hand was a map, faded so much that to take it in entire one had to squint. Drawn in 1791, it was Pierre L'Enfant's original layout of Washington. And here and there on the document, bleached so faint by time that the eye could not make out the words, were criticisms scribbled by the era's most brilliant fussbudget, Thomas Jefferson...
...still haunted by the memory of a right-wing dictatorship, perhaps even the stability of NATO's southern flank. The campaign had been spectacular and occasionally ugly, a succession of mammoth rallies, fiery oratory and occasional mudslinging. When the political chorus finally fell silent last week, there was a faint sense of relief in Western capitals. The paradoxical reason: Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, 66, the charismatic Socialist whose belligerent rhetoric and obstructionist ways have tested alliance patience since 1981, was still securely in power...
Most people feel gossip's special fascination "as horror or as attraction," observes the author. "Gossip, even when it avoids the sexual, bears about it a faint flavor of the erotic . . . Surely everyone feels -- although some suppress -- the same prurient interest in others' privacies, what goes on behind closed doors." Novelist Margaret Drabble is brought on to elevate the tone: "Much fiction operates in the spirit of inspired gossip. It speculates on little evidence, inventing elaborate and artistic explanations of little incidents and overheard remarks that often leave the evidence far behind." In that observation lies the key to this...