Word: discernable
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...cheat on standardized tests. Some hinted broadly at correct answers while students were taking the test; others used the scrap-paper method to avoid the multiple erasures that often indicate cheating; a few even changed answers after their students turned in the exams. The motive is not hard to discern. Teachers, particularly in the early grades, are increasingly being measured by the test scores of their students and can lose their jobs if student performance is too low and shows no sign of improvement...
...turn his weakness into a virtue. He's not a policy wonk, so he has to rely on people who are." And there is a risk to that approach, adds Buchanan, who is an admirer: "Bush's biggest weakness is that he might not be in a position to discern the credibility of the options his advisers...
...line between real and authentic gets harder to discern. With Gore, it varies from moment to moment. When he chirps about devoting his life to "change that works for working families," he is just spewing a contrived phrase. But for what it's worth, I think I saw a bit of the real Al Gore a few years ago when I interviewed him about the environment. The session was supposed to last 15 minutes. It went on for 90 as Gore talked about ozone depletion, at times pulling out charts like a college professor. His passion seemed pretty real...
Language as it evolves is like the game of Broken Telephone, in which a whispered phrase gets increasingly distorted as it passes from lip to ear. Eventually speakers no longer discern the rule behind a motley set of mangled verbs. They just memorize them as a list, as do subsequent generations. These are the irregulars, the fossils of dead rules...
...every opening, Birkett typically receives around eight applications. He even has brought in an outside consultant to help him discern between candidates...