Word: variant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...deconstruct the exact significance of what is affectionately abbreviated as "vaffa" when the irritation is a bit less extreme. It is an expression that has survived in one dialect form or another down generations of Italy's millions of emigrants around the world (it is known by its Sicilian variant in the U.S. va fangul, popularized on the hit HBO series The Sopranos), alongside more wholesome words and concepts like prosciutto, mamma and amore...
...variant of this ascetic self-denying perspective also lurks behind the prohibition impulse. Make no mistake: The war on drugs is about controlling people, not crime. Drugs have largely been defined by their links to vice and bacchanalia—from Homer’s lotus eaters (rescued from Lethe and lethargy) to modern pill-popping clubbers—which sets off a hand-wringing moral panic rather than rational thought. Perhaps the social externalities of drug use exceed the costs of prohibition, but the war on drugs usually isn’t justified by such cost-benefit analysis...
...strung together - colorful incident upon colorful incident, but without logic, gathering suspense or any attempt to establish emotional connections between audience and actors. I must say, it's as boring to type out criticism of that kind as it probably is to read it, since some close variant of it could be written week-in, week-out every summer movie season. It's tempting to conclude with a joke about the title: Maybe they should have called it Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wit's End. But no, in the movie's epilogue Jack Sparrow is seen setting forth...
...What would be far more useful, however, is to know individual patients’ exact genomes. Why? First, it would allow physicians to screen patients’ entire genome for gene variants that predispose us for certain diseases—instead of ordering a volley of individual (read: expensive) tests for different disorders. Women who carry a gene variant known to increase breast cancer risk, for example, would be able to begin mammograms earlier in life. Second, it would allow physicians to personalize medical treatments. In a few cases, this is already possible. The breast cancer drug Tamoxifen is much...
...problem of racism in American discourse is typified by the N-word outburst of comedian Michael Richards followed by his abject apology, the French variant is altogether more toxic. The latest outrage came from second-string TV personality and self-appointed social commentator Pascal Sevran, whose recently published book included the obscenely racist idea that the "black [penis] is responsible for famine in Africa." Elaborating in a newspaper interview, Sevran said, "Africa is dying from all the children born there" to parents supposedly too sexually undisciplined or dumb to realize they could not feed them all. The answer...