At first, the drugs seemed benign.
Pox seemed benign, and maybe it would help him somehow.
When words that once seemed benign suddenly turn toxic, what has happened?
Napster and the other file-sharing programs have always seemed benign except for the legal issues they raise.
Up till now, we agreed, the elephants had seemed benign twining their trunks, and mingling with the forest antelopes and buffalo in Langoué Bai, a clearing in the wilderness of Ivindo National Park.
These Americans, unlike the many Obama supporters who bombarded her with hate mail back in April, after her first scoop (Obama at an ostensibly private fund-raiser: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion"), seemed benign.
In the movie Cataloni's is transformed into the Fillmore, a place so scary that even the police are reluctant to enter, but on a weekday afternoon it seemed benign and almost cheerful.
Oklahoma's cornfields, splayed out either side of the freeway, seemed benign in the next day's sunlight – until we saw the mangled billboards and trees sheared by June's tornado and, later, passed a ruin of a trailer park, the upturned metal cabins flung like toys after a toddler's tantrum.
Question number two: How come these aliens, which (or is it who?) once seemed benign, even cuddly (as in ET: The Extra-Terrestrial), are now almost always depicted as horrifying and villainous?
"A pitch that seemed benign suddenly looked to be full of demons as Mark Wood whipped out three wickets in quick succession, after the early loss of Alex Hales.
The crowd that gathered before 8 a.m. at the Fremont Senior Center seemed benign.
