Word: gentler
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Seasonal sensitivities have gone global: a story out of Australia made headlines worldwide after a department-store Santa reported being told not to say "Ho, ho, ho" for fear of offending women. (Santa's employment agency insisted it was actually worried about frightening small children and recommended a gentler "Ha, ha, ha" instead...
...Come the fall, and the studios think filmgoers are in a gentler mood. So we get the more traditional mode of movie romance - the kind Hollywood specialized in for ages before it went out of style in the 90s - but which now might be called chick comedy. The protagonist is still a man (the moguls seeming to believe that no actress draw the big crowds), but romantic connection is the goal. And the tone is on the soft side. Chick comedy is about men compromising: trying to be nice, keeping secrets, coping with frustration and embarrassment, finding the middle...
...That tribute, like my opening paragraph, betrays a nostalgia for a kinder, gentler moviescape, back when stars spoke love in whispered metaphors and a leading lady knew how to get out of a limo without exposing her crotch. But that notion of refinement was a fiction too. It happened to be the prevailing tone of A-list movies of the 40s that lingered through the 50s. Kerr was not some elevated being who allowed herself to be photographed. She was an actress, convincingly playing these roles. And though her career was never marked by scandal, off-camera she could...
...cell, whose DNA-containing nucleus has been removed. The new cell then starts to divide and produce stem cells. In some cases, however, through mistakes in the nuclear-transfer process, eggs may begin dividing on their own. And Hwang may have increased his chances of parthenogenesis by using the gentler, squeezing technique he pioneered to remove the egg's nucleus; the process may have actually left behind enough genetic material for the egg to spontaneously divide. "As the egg starts to mature, [these elements] migrate and after about an hour, you can remove 30% of a primate's egg cytoplasm...
...accounts, however, was disturbing. The warm human qualities of the men killed-love of family, God or music-perhaps called for more subtlety than adherence to your editorial stylebook, which in this case was cold and harsh. Referring to the servicemen by their first names would have been a gentler act of respect. Jez Abbott, Hastings, England...