Word: ballast
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Bush, a man most comfortable with the prudent and predictable, the desire to give ballast to the wildly careening events of recent weeks may have been one reason he arrived in Malta with a long list of concrete proposals. Bush also seemed determined to prove to public opinion in the U.S. and Europe that the American President was just as committed to building the peace as his popular Soviet counterpart...
Stories about seafaring inevitably carry a ballast of symbolism. Shimmering significance goes with the territory: people casting off in the little world of a ship, adrift on a journey at the mercies of the elements and fate. In his second novel -- twelve years after his critically praised An American Romance -- John Casey makes it plain on the opening page that some large issues are going to be entertained. He introduces his hero, Dick Pierce, in a skiff, floating among the creeks and inlets of coastal Rhode Island. In paragraph two, Pierce ponders the marsh grass around...
...comprehensiveness and accuracy, and the magazine's personality pieces retain a healthy edge of skepticism. Moreover, some staffers believe the old TV Guide, with its rather stodgy format, may have been due for rejuvenation. Yet that sober, even-tempered tone of voice always provided an important bit of ballast for a business fraught with glitter and hype. The danger is that when the current make-over is finished, one of the TV industry's watchdogs will wind up as just another part of the show...
...conveyed around the world on ocean currents. The Carolinas algae, which had previously been confined to the Gulf of Mexico, apparently drifted to Atlantic shores by way of the Gulf Stream. One species that is native to Southern California is thought to have been carried to Spain in the ballast water of freighters...
Moreover, the parliamentary idea might dramatically shift the ballast and introduce considerable instability. Even in the stable British system, governments can be voted out of office by Parliament. Would Americans in the midst of a crisis -- the Iran-contra scandal, for example -- wish to subject the Administration to no-confidence votes...