"You still get a condescending attitude from someone whose specialty is supposed to be more serious," said Charles C. Alexander, distinguished professor of history at Ohio University, "but I think we're getting beyond that.
Livelier merchandising techniques (the spread of children's bookshops, for example), the availability of cheap paperbacks, improved library services, serious and even distinguished reviewing these are among the post-World War II institutional trends helping to place more books in the hands of more children.
Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment.
The Asian ghost story has a distinguished lineage: serious filmmakers like Kenji Mizoguchi, Masaki Kobayashi and Stanley Kwan have worked in the genre without shame and without a hint of condescension to the shades and specters and odd bits of ectoplasm that populate it.
"Every day we're hearing that there are these very big cuts looming and that we're in a serious budget crisis," said Rosalind Petchesky, distinguished professor of political science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center.
After the war, this working-class boy from Cleveland rode the G.I. Bill to a distinguished career as a serious painter, sculptor, and university professor.
In the 1960s and '70s, as his hair turned white and he became an even more distinguished figure, Mr. Nielsen played serious military men, government leaders and even a mob boss, appearing in crime dramas, westerns and the occasional horror movie.
For Gore, anyone named Kerry or Kerrey would be fun... Then again, Gore — who changed his position in the Elian Gonzalez affair for the love of Florida — might give serious thought to that state's distinguished senator, Bob Graham.
The New Yorker, February 18 , 1928P. 9 Mr. Heenan was brought to Mitchell Field where a group of distinguished aviators were in serious discussion--Giuseppe Bellanca, Chamberlin, and the backer of his endurance flight.
The central character is Edward Wilson (a convincingly grey and serious Matt Damon), a literary scholar from a distinguished WASP family, who becomes a member of the world's most exclusive secret society, Skull and Bones, while a student at Yale.
