I'm reminded of one difference every time I take out the electronic pass that lets me past the elaborate security desk in the lobby of the building where I work.
Unfortunately, the furniture is the best buy — about $395 for an elaborate Empire desk; glass-front bookcases for $120 — but of course then you must devise a plan to schlep these behemoths home.
Escritorio (1650 - 1700) Ms. Davis called this elaborate fall-front desk a "Spanish Colonial laptop," since it was made for travel.
Some are elaborate — like the desk clock in the shape of a helmsman's wheel, with Franklin D. Roosevelt confidently steering the course "for a New Deal" — while others are quite goofy, like the "Clean Up With Ike" bars of soap, "I Like Ike" stretch socks and "Support Ike" suspenders.
On his desk is an elaborate scrapbook with news stories about the 16-day strike of 1983.
He received a thousand e-mails each day, the lawyers elaborated; he sat at a desk with seven monitors, and it was on the far left monitor that his Outlook inbox appeared.
I got a friend to leave his bag in between the desks and staged an elaborate tumble over it, before lying in a heap on the floor.
This year at the V.M.A.s, in lieu of a proper host, the comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele wore elaborate headsets and sat behind a gleaming desk, clutching smartphones.
Speaking one day recently as she sat in her office beneath an array of college pennants, her desk and bookshelves overflowing with college publications, Ms. Mitchell elaborated on her approach.
Not that a home office is always a four-walled container for an elaborate workstation and built-ins — more often, in fact, it's nothing more than a desk, or a desk-substitute.
He said many such letters pass across his desk and he needed to review this one before elaborating on it.
