Word: grips
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Tightening the Grip. As the impact of the elections sank in, the military mutterings grew so loud that President Castello Branco was forced into a move that would only make his government even more unpopular. In return for not interfering with the results, the stern linha dura (hard line) officers won the promise that Castello Branco would send new proposals to Congress tightening the revolution's hold on the country through military courts and police. Most important, the military wants to change next year's presidential elections from direct balloting by the people to indirect balloting by Congress...
During a diplomatic reception in Manila some years ago, a guest with a tenuous grip on the English language grew more and more perplexed. Finally he turned to another guest. "Who," he asked, gesturing toward an obviously important U.S. official, "is this man they call Mr. Bastard right to his face...
...front door by Mrs. Hedges, who hands him a stiff shot of sherry and a nasty bit of news: he is now, and for several months has been, a cuckold. A bit of rough weather, that. But as a British civil servant, Hedges takes a firm grip on his brolly and does the decent thing. Even after his wife divorces him and marries the other bloke, he still sends her birthday cards and occasionally advances the new couple a few quid to keep things going. People call him a chump, and Hedges is vaguely aware that they are right...
...growing faith in the new American President in order to defend interests and pursue objectives of their own." And according to Sorensen, the whole Bay of Pigs project "seemed to move mysteriously and inexorably toward execution without either the President's being able to obtain a firm grip on it or reverse it." Still, whatever weaknesses there may have been -or may remain-in government decisionmaking, there seems nothing wrong with the apparatus that firm leadership at the top cannot cure. The trouble at the time, both chroniclers argue, was the President's newness. He had been...
With its pistol grip and nubby barrel, the instrument looks like the handy ray gun with which Buck Rogers and Wilma used to zap Killer Kane. It is actually a space-age wrench. Cordless and battery-powered, it was designed by Martin Marietta as a zero-reaction power tool to be used by astronauts for turning nuts and bolts in the weightless conditions of space...