Word: understood
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...those skeptical of the possibilities of alternative medicine, consider a well-known and accepted medical reality: the so-called placebo effect, which refers to changes in a patient's health in response to sugar pills. Understood as a psychological response to the expectation that medication will heal, and therefore a consequence of a patient's feelings and expectations, the placebo effect indicates clearly the power of the mind to help cure the body...
Everyone in Cabrini-Green, it seems, knows Brother Bill, 63. He is a difficult man to overlook, his 5-ft. 11-in., 220-lb. frame clad in a trademark flowing, sky-blue cassock made from hundreds of tattered denim patches. That robe has become an understood symbol of peace and humility in this place with precious little of either. Fifty-three times, by his count, he has waded into gunfire in order to stop it. Fifty-three times, the gunfire has stopped. And 53 times, he has emerged unscathed...
Americans in foreign lands have always encountered the sort of foreigners who like to begin conversations by expressing their inability to understand something about America, as in "I've never understood why you Americans insist on running everything" or "I don't understand why so many Americans are racist, imperialistic thugs...
...even more difficult for Americans abroad. Being rather old-fashioned about what is appropriate to discuss with someone I've just met--at least, judging by what's been in the papers, more old-fashioned than the President--I wasn't looking forward to remarks like "I've never understood why you Americans are so hung up on sex" or "I can't understand why you Americans continue to make such randy people President...
...implies the threat that Clement represents for Efram's power. Toward the end, Efram dies specifically because of the accusatory, lying words a child utters about him. This causation becomes clear a moment before his death. When Pella and Morris, who voices the accusation, stand before Efram: "He [Efram] understood. She [Pella] would stand by the words. He knew the power in them. He should...