Word: gimmick
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...beef up federal narcotics enforcement on a broad front. Just before final adoption, a handful of Senators on the floor shouted through a resolution pledging to find the money later. Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark Hatfield, who was behind the maneuver, was not proud of it. "It's a gimmick," he admitted afterward. "All we're doing is Band-Aiding ourselves over the obvious obstacle of the election...
...used by a California therapy guru, fictionalized as Dr. Klaus Woofner, to explain human behavior. Kesey the globe trotter and spiritual joker seems entranced. But Kesey the planter of corn and milker of cows presents Woofner as another psycho-alchemist trying to turn a metaphor into a 14-karat gimmick. The point is made admiringly by one skilled fancifier to another. After all, the charlatan, like the artist, exploits illusion and a sense of mystery. Behind the plow or on the road, this has always been a risky business. The author's father once blamed his son's troubles...
...petition is a gimmick designed to fatten G.O.P. coffers, to be sure, but Reagan was perfectly happy to play along. On the fund-raising circuit himself last week, he told a Texas audience that as he flew over the Dallas Convention Center, where he was renominated in 1984, he thought, "I wonder how folks down there would feel about giving it one more try?" As the audience broke into delirious applause, Reagan quickly added, with his showman's timing, "I'm kidding, of course." But not wholly. Reagan has come to see the 22nd Amendment as limiting presidential leverage...
Cameron knew that the success of the Scott film derived not from any single gimmick -- like the famous moment when the alien, nurtured unawares by John Hurt's character, pops bloodily out of his chest. Rather, the filmmaker, "using all the tools at his disposal," had created an atmosphere in which every shadow spooks and every sound alarms...
...most students go out for dinner and spend $5-6, we should merely donate $5 to Oxfam. I agree that would be better, but the fact is that if it were not for the fast, almost nobody would just arbitrarily donate the money. Charity in our society needs a gimmick such as the Dance Marathon or the Ride for Life to induce people to give...