Word: softener
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...dramatizes many of the issues that faced TV's news pioneers, from blacklisting to the gathering pres sure for ratings. When CBS Chairman William Paley (Dabney Coleman) breaks the news to Murrow that his acclaimed documentary series See It Now is losing its weekly time slot, he tries to soften the blow by lavishing praise on the program and promising a series of specials instead. TV news veterans will wince at the familiarity of that archetypal scene...
Quite simply, a pass/fail Expos would be a disaster. We understand that Expos is an extremely difficult class and that it can be traumatic for freshmen, especially those who wrote little in high school. While a pass/fail Expos may soften the transition to Harvard, it is the unfortunate truth that for many students a transcript grade is what compels them to work. Expos is a cornerstone course in which the educational experience critically involves investing time and energy in the writing and improvement of papers. Both the class itself, and the writing program at Harvard in general, would be immensely...
Reuven Adler accepted the daunting challenge in the 2001 election of trying to soften Ariel Sharon's image. "He's a warrior. He's quite fat, and when he walks, he stomps along," Adler, an advertising executive, recalls thinking. "We had to give him some feminine appeal." Sharon, Adler calculated, was too far to the right on the political spectrum to gain broad support. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing the extreme left wing and 5 the far right, Adler figured, Sharon was a 4.7. The winner of every previous election had been a little right...
...hearts of middle England, without which Blair would not have won Labour's stunning victories in 1997 and 2001. Still, he's trying. At the final press conference before the election, almost jolly in his role as heir apparent, Brown deviated from his prepared text to soften rousing attacks on the privileged into gentler critiques of their privileges. Says a Blair ally: "If they can reach a grand modus vivendi, Tony will be delighted." That would be some relief, after an election in which the prime-ministerial nose was comprehensively bloodied...
Student efforts have yet to soften the administration...