Oh, sure, some will say he was merely referencing Social Security Works, but we know that Alan Simpson is an honest, honorable man, so it's obvious what he was really talking about.
Music essayist Robert Christgau writes that Cooder "reapply[es] the Popular Front mindset to the messy compromises of electoral politics, and all the must-hears illuminate the 2012 presidential election rather than merely referencing it".
Although he did not mention Trump by name, merely referencing the "hypocrisy and casual violence of certain individuals and institutions," the actor seemed to evoke the many groups (from black activists to Syrian refugees) that the president has spoken and acted against.
Other stories offered little explanation or analysis and merely referenced people's 'race' without any explanation as to why this was relevant.
Business 2.0 broke the story and their article simply references "the current version of SQL Server," but they were merely referring to "MS SQL Server 2005 Express".
She'd merely made reference to my daughter's skin tone.
Its mysterious maps show Chinese sovereignty extending over areas far bigger than would be justified merely by reference to its claim to the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos.
The slapdash, ultimately tedious comedy "The Comebacks" — in which a loser coach named Lambeau Fields David Koechnerr) leads a misfit team to victory — is one of those parody movies that presume that merely making reference to another film constitutes a joke.
"But if you use it to suggest some connection in Iraq, its misleading if you have nothing to do with the military, or if it doesn't have much independent trademark significance other than merely a reference to the action over there and it's not an independent brand name".
If I didn't know that Pegida stands for Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, and thought perhaps the acronym was merely a reference to three politically active friends (PEtra, GIsela, DAgmar) who organised a demonstration every Monday evening, I'd go along with interest.
