Word: toning
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...doing something important, unprecedented and unbearably hard,” Sarah says in reference to raising a biracial child in a prejudiced community, with a superciliousness that makes for a typical target of Tassie’s witty internal monologue. Tassie’s tone careens between ribald and elegiac, making “A Gate at the Stairs” a novel to read with caution. Tassie’s familiar voice can distract from Moore’s understated style and her love of detail and word games...
Although Moore’s tone is usually straightforward and conversational, she is at heart a writer deeply concerned with language, and many of Tassie’s insights about life in Troy are born from observations about local idiom. When a character drops the word “hogwash,” Tassie deadpans, “I had once seen a hog washed. In whey. The hog was Helen, and she really liked it, the slop of the whey, then later a cool hose.” Her constant language-play calls attention to the separate vernaculars...
...that the band’s third effort, “Romance is Boring,” is a bleaker, angrier record is no small statement. The transformation in emotional tone is partially rooted in the lyrics, which retain their visceral but heartfelt quality within an expanding thematic range. Encompassing anorexia, losing parents, meaningless sex, abuse, and loss of faith, as well as more well-trodden romantic territory, the topics at hand are far from cheerful. More than anything, though, the tonal shift comes down to the band further shedding their twee image for a noise-influenced, experimental, nearly anarchic...
...since the 2008 elections, Democrats have suffered many setbacks. In particular, anger at the continually increasing rate of unemployment, now at 9.7 percent, in addition to the size of the deficit and the level of government spending, has led the national discourse to adopt a more populist, anti-government tone. Republicans have been quick to point fingers at the Democrats as the cause of these problems and the source of the nation’s anger. Obama responded to their claims with an appropriately combative tone in order to show that he is listening closely to the Americans?...
...Which is partly why Republicans are doing their best to keep a civil tone. No one yelled "You lie!" at Obama during his speech Wednesday night, though there was much rolling of eyes and shaking of heads from the GOP side of the aisle. Republicans realize they have to look like they are at least trying to get something achieved this year, even as they benefit politically from continued gridlock on Capitol Hill...