"Its once glorious attacking whimsy … has made way for a dull, mirthless counterattacking style," Leander Schaerlaeckens writes, "premised on defensive solidity and, that awful word again, pragmatism".
Gray's aggressive, sometimes mirthless prosecutorial style has been on view since the 1980s in his stints at ESPN (twice), CBS, NBC and Showtime Boxing.
For months, he had been outpointed at almost every turn in the Commons by Mr. Cameron, a politician of apparently superior debating and presentational skills, and gifted with what seemed an easy target in Mr. Miliband and, his critics said, his often mirthless, lecturing style.
Erdmann, recounting the story two weeks later in his trailer behind the palace, smiled in his mirthless way.
"It's just the beginning," the guard said, encouragingly, to which the aide flashed a mirthless smile.
Friedkin replies with a mirthless smile: "I was never moved by Star Wars".
It is a style of American Misery familiar from Mark Twain the styleh-Irish-Amirthlesstyle, mirthless and Methodist and mercenary.
It is a style of American Misery familiar from Mark Twain — the Scotch-Irish-American style, mirthless and Methodist and mercenary.
All are profoundly mirthless.
She gives a mirthless laugh.
