Failure to deliver on their 7-year-old promise to repeal Obamacare isn't just causing consternation among top GOP lawmakers, however.
In any case, the first question is rhetorical, although some of us will take a lifetime to discover, to our consternation, just how much truth it tells.
The former world No 1 announced yesterday that he will miss the British major for the second time in four years, although the implications for his future caused just as much consternation.
But his consternation quickly faded.
Street View, the mapping service that has caused much consternation, has just gone live in Germany, but in a modified form.
But that fleeting phrase has touched off an extraordinary degree of speculation, consternation and just plain puzzlement here.
Even judges say the new legislation may be unconstitutional; civil-liberties groups say it may breach Hungary's international obligations.By coincidence (or not), three senior intelligence figures have just been arrested, causing consternation among the chattering classes.
There's a wonderful moment in Greenland where this white ursine creature lopes in, to the consternation not just of the geographers on the Arctic island where, because of global warming, the Inuits are having to invent a noun for "robin", but of the policy wonks with their laptops who are preparing for a global summit on this issue.
"To my consternation, many people just concentrated on the word apartheid" and ignored everything else, Mr. Carter said in an interview.
His BlackBerry raised to one ear, he murmured directives in French, glancing up from time to time to inspect the clothes, which, to his consternation, had arrived just the weekend before.
