Word: refering
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...third and final installment, Ms. Dugger reported that the present Director, Mr. Gordon, "...doubts the HIID would advise the Central African Empire...under the present government." Surely, he must have meant to refer to the government of former Emperor Jean-Badel Bokassa, which was overturned in September 1979, more than five months ago. The nation is now once again the Central African Republic, headed by President David Dacko, who is generally judged to be a benevolent leader. Former Emperor Bokassa is in exile in the Ivory Coast...
...argued that by making the speech more ambiguous, the President would retain more flexibility on critical questions, such as what specific Soviet actions would constitute a threat against U.S. interests in the Gulf region and how the U.S. would respond. Another debate was over how Carter should refer to the area he was proposing to defend. He finally decided that "the oilfields" sounded too crass, and settled on "the Persian Gulf region...
...secret of Princeton's success lies in its aggressive recruiting tactics. While no one questions black-and-orange admissions standards, some top Tigers have been lost to what some snickeringly refer to as the "Princeton syndrome," including a prominent member of this year's squad and, most notably, student-turned-squash pro Tom Page...
...thick with devalued buzz words, including "buzz words." Behavioral science, always a leader in the euphemism derby, has cut some gems and polished some others: psychologists persistently refer to unresponsive women as "preorgasmic," and Masters and Johnson call foreplay a "stimulative approach opportunity," perhaps the most effective sexual turn-off since saltpeter. Therapists speak of "actualizing," to mean the fulfillment of potential. "I hear you" has descended from the aural to the banal; it means a total understanding of the speaker's temperament. "Lifing" is the effort to derive the utmost from every day; "Who are you screaming with...
...instrumentation that would provide an unambiguous indication of the level of fluid in the reactor vessel." Translation: we need more accurate measuring devices. A company vice president dismissed the incident as an exaggeration. What had happened, he said, was "a normal aberration." In the same spirit, federal antitrust lawyers refer to "conscious parallelism"-first cousin to price fixing...