Personal freedom is diminished when the most intimate secrets can be monitored by employers and merchants.
And the quality of the experience is diminished when the choices are very narrow and predictable.
These were seriously diminished when the skylights were painted over and a two-story atoll diorama at one end was cut in half.
Of course, the challenge for any journalistic collection is to prove its relevance, a challenge not diminished when the material is as recent as it is here.
The justice system is diminished when the government tries to enforce the law it wishes for, instead of the law that exists.
Bodies and plane debris fell into people's homes and the chances of a thorough and methodical clean-up diminished when the site was left unsecured for days.
The authority of the law and the power of the government are not diminished when the Justice Department moves deliberately, as it often did in Southern civil rights enforcement in the 1960's.
In March, Turner's business influence was further diminished when the parent company announced that his top lieutenants at Turner Broadcasting — Terence McGuirk, the chairman and C.E.O., and Steven J. Heyer, the president — would be replaced by Jamie Kellner, the chief executive and founder of the WB broadcast network.
Rooney has scored more times against this Saturday's opponents, four, than against any other nation and, whatever the strength of Charlton's paean, there will inevitably be those who feel the achievement is diminished when the player is topping up his figures against a team with the grand total of three points out of a possible 348 in qualifying competitions.
Mr. Talib, an African-American, said his respect for law enforcement officials was greatly diminished when the police and the F.B.I. were discovered to have spied on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders during the civil rights era.
The offense is magnified, not diminished, when the offending party is of the stature of a Goodwin or an Ambrose, and to give them a pass while failing and expelling the lesser-light students who commit the same offense (for a grade rather than for money or reputation) would send a very bad message!
