Conversation was desultory and difficult, centring mainly around Amarinth's unwillingness to devote enough of her time to homework. |
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In the lounge room of the Sydney apartment, the desultory conversation suggests the housemates might as well be on different planets. |
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The discussions are desultory and most MPs, barring a few, do not even come prepared with their facts and figures. |
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There was a halting, desultory conversation, and he never mentioned the script. |
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Into this somewhat desultory discussion among historians a sociologist has now tossed a bombshell. |
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His perception was that the desultory and undisciplined Chinese people did not deserve a democratic system. |
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Every ten to fifteen years, the earth wobbles in a desultory fashion somewhere in these islands and a roof slate or two drops off. |
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The first incoming flight, organised by the CIA, was welcomed with desultory bursts of anti-aircraft fire. |
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Opening night saw a desultory 20 people rattling around in a big, airy room ready for 70 diners. |
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So much for my thought that the Justice Department would mount a desultory investigation and then give up. |
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I remained at the bar and had another glass of warm beer, in the long interludes of silence making desultory conversation with mine host. |
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Over the years, there have been some desultory attempts to turn Fungus into a film. |
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Clashes and desultory fighting continued in Samarra north of Baghdad between US forces and Sunni Arab guerrillas. |
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And some desultory clicking around Microsoft Office didn't see the power consumption get much above one watt. |
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A desultory cannonade began at about 14.00, and as it seemed likely that there would be no battle that day Newcastle retired to his coach. |
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There is desultory chitchat on the verandah as evening slides into pitch-dark night. |
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His essay on the desultory efforts made to protect the murrelet and its nesting grounds in oldgrowth forests is particularly acute. |
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The stroll looks innocuously aimless enough, random conversation and desultory gaits all firmly in place. |
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But despite his forced jocularity, desultory attempts at humour, and spurts of nervous energy, Obree is a husk of heroism past. |
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The salad may have been a bit desultory and almost Parmesan-less, but the beautifully moist carpaccio of beef more than made up for it. |
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Next Friday sees the first anniversary of the inception of this desultory philippic. |
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I have also been having a desultory email discussion of some issues with moral philosopher Keith Burgess-Jackson lately. |
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Ayodhya has been subject to desultory and very limited archaeological investigations since the 19th century. |
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A few Maori left in the pa fired a few last desultory shots on the stranded soldiers, until a second battle began. |
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Libya sank into civil war with NATO's desultory participation taking it toward stalemate, maybe even break-up. |
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There was a time, not that long ago, when the most exotic fare on offer in our capital city was coq au vin, a desultory vindaloo or a slab of lasagne. |
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A few minutes later, the river ford hove into sight, and desultory fire from the enemy began to interrupt the quiet of the dawn like toy cap guns. |
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But officials have repeatedly postponed a second session as desultory talks have dragged on over the division of top Cabinet posts among Iraq's religious and ethnic groups. |
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All hopes destroyed, the young man leaves England and begins a desultory life of intrigue, adventure, and lost love among German princelings and principalities. |
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She is overseeing a new line of activewear, called In It to Slim It, but there is a desultory feel to the enterprise. |
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After a few moments of desultory flicking, the actor noticed the director shaking his head. |
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On arrival in Jakarta, desultory passport inspectors may keep him waiting in line for an hour. |
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So providing it is a tiresome task that we will perform in a desultory manner. |
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African leaders pretend that this conflict does not exist, or else treat it in a most desultory manner. |
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They continued in desultory fashion until year's end, but picked up speed and purpose in January. |
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Perfection would consist in being unaffected by the desultory response of my children to this maternal affection. |
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In some instances, training institutions appear to follow a desultory and haphazard procedure to the detriment of their activities. |
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There was desultory talk for a time about the wonders of the Heavens spread out above us. |
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Yet this apparently desultory game actually represents a triumph because all the players on the pitch were once homeless. |
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The crowd is desultory, half a dozen girls and boys, yawning in the winter sunshine of the Judean hills. |
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In the mid 1990s desultory attempts were being made to revive this last variety, in the belief that it will add aromatic interest when blended with the Barbera grape. |
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Before the workers entered the heritage conservation scene, there had been only desultory efforts at saving historical architecture and the urban environment in Australia. |
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Almost every time I shop for groceries, I throw something into the cart in a desultory fashion in homage to Mary Tyler Moore, who does this in the opening credits. |
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Slave patrols, rather than being desultory or inadequate, turn out to be one of the chief ways that the southern states enforced their peculiar institution. |
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Some putter along in a slightly languid and desultory fashion. |
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One is that the language is the language of human discourse, and is subject to the same redundancies and occasional verbiage that we all encounter in desultory conversation. |
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Some Islamist groups today claim to want to re-establish the post, but their discussions lack rigor, are desultory, and thus far have no wide appeal. |
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We don't want aimless acts any more than we want desultory negotiations. |
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To hang upon the flanks of an enemy, is to harass and perplex him in a more desultory manner than what is generally practised when you press upon his rear. |
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The Americans and their allies are carrying out a desultory air campaign in Syria that appears focused on support for the Kurds. |
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Yammara has been sleeping in desultory fashion with a student, Aura, who then turns up pregnant and moves in with him. |
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Most of that is the desultory ticky-tacky kind that litters the right side of people's Facebook profiles. |
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It seemed initially that the new Indian government wanted to accomplish what it had not succeeded in 30 years of desultory negotiations under the Shimla agreement. |
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It's worth the trouble, just to be able to dream a little over a third cup of coffee, shuffling through your newspaper and doing a bit of desultory people-watching. |
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A once desultory and commercially moribund neighborhood is revived. |
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It reminded me of the desultory days when I used to sit in Harvard Square and talk with every homeless stewbum and mental outpatient that I could corner for a cup of coffee. |
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Pekar's endearingly pathetic life is given an new perspective when he translates his desultory day-today experiences into the basis for a cartoon strip. |
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Elongated roars and fragments of voices gave a sense of atmospheric portent, while syncopated pings, clicks and chirps added a desultory counterpoint. |
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He says that through the rest of the summer, markets may be a bit desultory, though longer term he is much more bullish on aluminum scrap. |
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The hills between the valley and the valley of the Enza Secchia, after desultory Neolithic settlements, was the subject of Roman colonization, who settled in major centers such as Luceria where today we find the Ciano town. |
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It has been explored for a long time at intervals in a desultory way, for the mere sake of getting bones and no doubt with the expectation of securing some objects of value, possibly of gold or silver. |
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Couples stroll under pools of lamplight, while the park drive pulses with the footfalls of runners, the whir of cyclists and the desultory clop of carriage horses. |
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The numerically inferior Spanish were not the same smashing side that ran riot in the first half, as the distant flashes of lightning were the only sparks on display in a desultory second period. |
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The House of Stuart's attempts to control the Outer Hebrides were then at first desultory and little more than punitive expeditions. |
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I slide the water bowl under its nose, and it takes a few desultory laps. |
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In this respect several delegates stressed that some regulation is required to protect them, as well as others, from the desultory effects of the harmful side of the Internet. |
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In what is structurally a road novel that ends up where it began, the desultory threesome stumbles upon both cruelty to animals and unlikely romance. |
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Progress of labour should be assessed frequently, as there is some evidence that prolonged or desultory labour is associated with an increased risk of failure and uterine rupture. |
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They are not desultory, but form one body, whose feet are firmly planted on the ground and which is prepared, with great pragmatism, to imagine a responsible and challenging future for Europe. |
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Given that the budget is already low, this reduction amounts to a glaring lack of political will to make this pilot project a success story, rather than merely a desultory campaign. |
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Nevertheless, people had to eat, and agriculture, mining, and industry continued, often in a desultory manner, as armies, disgruntled barons, and rebellious mobs fought out their quarrels across many European lands. |
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The firing just ahead had subsided to desultory machine gun and rifle fire and McCullogh was dispatched by the Colonel, to find out I believe, what progress was being made by the right flank. |
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The absence of such standards as well as the lack of qualified staff in OHRM have helped create a situation in which OHRM makes only a desultory and superficial contribution to the recruitment process. |
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If you look at the transcript of the film of the so-called riots' in Tallinn, you see pictures of desultory groups of youths smashing windows and stealing luxury goods. |
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He was standing around in a desultory state of disappointment later that afternoon when the Archduke's car, in a horrible piece of fortuity, turned the corner directly in front of him. |
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To mend the matter, Hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. |
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