Ironically, circumcision, converted more than a century ago from a religious tenet to medical wisdom, has marked generations of males born in the United States not as the children of Israel but, in Lincoln's astute phrase, God's 'almost chosen people.' ".
Marion "Duke" Morrison was born in Iowa to a no-account father and a mother who never gave him much credit — a "grievance collector," in Eyman's astute phrase.
Chappelle remains one of the best storytellers alive, booby-trapping his narratives with head fakes and hilariously astute turns of phrase.
David Harrower's astute new script, not gaudily phrased but politically idiomatic, cleverly questions democracy itself, and the danger of X Factor politics.
While Chibnall's script was crisply phrased and psychologically astute, David Tennant and Olivia Colman – as the detectives investigating the murder of Danny Latimer – added layers of pain, past and ambiguity through looks and silences perfectly judged for the long, intense inspection of character that a TV serial allows.
And an astute observer — of the kind who traffic in phrases — named them piranhas.
Her roundup of the civil unrest between President Mubarak and his people is not only astute for a child, but full of adorable phrases that almost make you forget how terrible the situation is over there.
Each new abusive dispatch makes the rounds among financial professionals, as Loeb's more astute fans and detractors take note of his recurring motifs: chauffeurs, hobnobbing, the phrase "inexplicable insouciance".
McCarthy can be incredibly astute psychologically, the long lists are astounding in their precision, there is hardly a bad phrase and many of the images are wonderful.
NEW CHAMBER BALLET The musically astute choreographer Miro Magloire's new trio, set to Dvorák's "Four Romantic Pieces," offers subtle shifts of mood and supple phrasing, which the twentieth-century works Magloire usually gravitates toward tend to lack.
