Word: sheerly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...recently as early July, it would have seemed sheer fantasy to think that in four months, all sides would be meeting with a real cease-fire in effect and at least the broad outlines of a settlement agreed on. But it was precisely because all concerned were forced then to peer into a terrifying abyss that they began pulling back from the brink...
...every standing and occupation and from every part of the country. For more than seven hours they gathered for the stated purpose of pledging themselves to self-reliance and respect for women. But there was more to it than that. By the simple fact of their numbers, by the sheer power of the headcounts and the wide-angle copter shots that still couldn't capture the whole crowd, they were there to remind Americans that even in a time of conservatism and backlash, the business of racism and inequality will not be ignored. The National Park Service initially estimated that...
Maybe so, though The F-Word is really a novelty. What makes it so interesting, if not thrilling, to grownups is the sheer volume of its usages, all of them duly authenticated with citations and examples. None of them--Darn it!--can be spelled out here (although some periodicals, notably the New Yorker, erstwhile doyenne of classy writing, print the word nowadays without a blush...
...sheer energy of Hanoi startled veterans of our 1985 Newstour, who remembered little but drab poverty. This time we saw a Vietnam bursting with commerce, construction, luxury hotels and growth in every sector. "We owe our prosperity to the new policies of the government," said a villager in Dinh Bang, 12 miles from Hanoi, and for once the party line is true. Ten years ago, the heirs of Ho Chi Minh concluded that their country was stagnating and decided to build an internal market while inviting foreign investment. The country still has a one-party state and a sluggish bureaucracy...
...with sheer pleasure, then, that we watch as events take an unexpected turn, separating Wentworth from Louisa and bringing him, through a thicket of obstacles, back to Anne. "Persuasion" is certainly a tale of romance, in which the heroine ends up happy against all odds. But what makes it distinctively a Jane Austen story is the moral dimension of the romance; the real agony of Anne's plight is not just her lack of a husband, but her total isolation among people who neither understand nor value her character and virtue...