Annan can make the vaguest, most innocuous statements sound substantial and profound, and he can deliver his toughest, most challenging arguments without apparent argumentativeness.
His own strength of character (or, as critics would say, his argumentativeness) determined that he would make up his own mind on the questions of the day.
Records of his meetings with East German generals have him complaining of the "Polish disease of Catholicism" and of the country's disposition to "nationalism and argumentativeness".
His sense of urgency, his impressive ego, his argumentativeness, his love of theatrics, his tendency to bend the truth, his willingness to risk lives or injury for his beliefs (or for publicity), and his courage (or recklessness) have earned him both loathing and veneration from those who are familiar with his activism.
The former is secular argumentativeness; the latter is closer to religious elegy.
You feel you're listening to ethical argumentativeness that reminds you of the Talmud — pedantic disputatiousness".
It offered much light but little heat, and at the end of the day, Stephen Walsh, a noted Stravinsky biographer, bemoaned the lack of argumentativeness.
I find it delightful, even inspiring, to read Mr. Nightingale discussing Shakespeare revivals with the argumentativeness of sports talk radio.
"I love it because of the argumentativeness, because every staircase in Israel is full of memories and stories and conflicting ideas".
It even manages to get some of the broad character strokes, such as his loneliness both before and after coming out of the closet, his inability to suffer fools and his argumentativeness.
I've no idea how observant a Jew the real Larry David is, but the Larry he plays in Curb Your Enthusiasm is my sort of Jew – in it but not into it, enjoying the culture, the humour, the hypochondria, the Yiddish-isms, the argumentativeness, the curious, sceptical take on the world – but weirded out by the inward-looking-ness and the religious stuff.
