Word: shrift
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...still resounding on Capitol Hill over his announcement last week of the 1988 education budget. Bennett, a doctrinaire Reaganaut when it comes to reducing the Federal Government's role in education, proposed slashing $5.5 billion from this year's appropriation of $19.5 billion. Such notions usually get short shrift in Congress. Robert Atwell, president of the American Council on Education, brands the new proposed cuts "indecent." And Congressman Hawkins says of other parts of the new budget, "It's nuts...
...billion) during his six- year tenure. He has markedly improved the quality of the agency's intelligence analyses, partly by creating a better balance between the Company's capabilities in ELINT (electronic intelligence gathering) and HUMINT (human intelligence gathering, meaning spies and informers), which had been given short shrift. Having been a World War II operative for the old Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's precursor), Casey has retained a fondness for covert activities, and his reputation and elan have made him a hero within the agency. Yet the high morale at the CIA is in danger of evaporating...
...with Reversal of Fortune is that it tries too hard to mix in the sleaze with a balanced, legalistic approach to the trial. In the end, anyone who wanted to know just how Dershowitz--the nation's premier criminal appeals attorney--handled this case would feel a little short shrift, and so would anyone who wanted to read about all the trashy gossip...
...corporate executives paid off would-be takeover artists with greenmail, adopted so-called poison-pill measures to dissuade unwanted suitors by making their firms less attractive targets, or handed themselves fat settlements known as golden parachutes. All too often, argues New York's Goldin, "the shareholders have gotten short shrift...
...spreading misuse of the term hopefully drew a pithy rebuke: "This once useful adverb meaning 'with hope' has been distorted and is now widely used to mean 'I hope' or 'it is to be hoped.' Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly." He gave "finalize" even shorter shrift: "A pompous, ambiguous verb." Funny was a word that should also be held at arm's length: "Nothing becomes funny by being labeled...