"cakewalk" is a correct and usable word in written English.
You can use it to mean an easy task or a situation in which success is almost assured. For example: "Getting a top grade on the final exam was a cakewalk for John."
But even for a plow driver, the snow is no cakewalk.
Dmytro Kuleba, a senior official with Ukraine's foreign ministry, says the marathon Minsk negotiations will be "recalled as a cakewalk compared to further implementation efforts".
Or the moment when, inching out along an upper yardarm to retrieve a halyard (for he was a signal boy), he saw the engine-room safety valves pump out a column of red-hot steam, and expected to be boiled alive.The life of a boy-sailor on the navy's prize battlecruiser was no cakewalk.
The ease with which America toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan promised a cakewalk in Iraq, which the American military machine duly delivered.
Mary Jo McGrath, a Californian lawyer, says that "getting rid of a problem teacher can make the O.J. [Simpson] trial look like a cakewalk".
A cakewalk in the primaries risks leaving vulnerabilities unexposed and unfortified.It's also worth noting that the Democrats' electoral advantage at the presidential level is not a sure thing.
Kenneth Adelman, he of the "cakewalk", has since called the Bush national-security team "among the most incompetent" of the post-war era.
The very first professional league championship in 1889 was a cakewalk for Preston North End, which went through a 22-game season without losing a match (it won in 1890 too, though never since).
With hindsight, it is obvious that those who expected that Iraq would be a cakewalk or that fancy computer models would take the risk out of finance were blinded by optimism.
It would doubtless be better in future for America to embark on such adventures, if at all, with a clearer view of the costs, less faith in a military "cakewalk" and a more modest view of what force can achieve.
Even so, the result will resonate.The campaign has been a cakewalk for Gordon Campbell, a bland figure who after eight years as Liberal leader is still not popular.
