An Israeli move on Syria might suit Obama, too, especially if Tuesday's unprecedented warm words from the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, do not translate into the substantive changes in Iranian behaviour that the US wants.
The French news media currently devote unprecedented numbers of words to issues like rape and domestic violence and the division of labor in the home.
In his writings and speeches, Professor Barnett uses four words — unprecedented, uncabined (lawyerly jargon for unlimited), unnecessary and dangerous — to describe the individual mandate.
Banville is the sort of writer, drunk on Joyce, who wants to nail down every fleeting moment and sensation with some strenuously unprecedented combination of words: the "slurred clamor" of a startled heartbeat, the "humid conspiracy" of a grandmother, the "lumpy wodge of stirabout" that is cereal left too long in its bowl of milk.
Pope Paul, in his address at Bethlehem, used words unprecedented in a Roman pontiff: "We shall put our trust in prayer which, even though it is not yet united prayer, rises up, nevertheless, simultaneously from ourselves and from Christians separated from us, like two parallel columns which meet on high to form an arch".
It's time to stop using the words "unprecedented" or "one in a pick-your-large-number-year flood" to fool ourselves into believing that we're experiencing one-off weather that can't be defended against.
Sign up now to get the best oFrancisCanada delivered straight to your inbox.
All due to his unprecedented, cringe-worthy words, deeds and unforced errors.
Unprecedented reforms, two words summing up Governor Patrick Quinn's tenure so far.
And there is an apt jibe at broadcast journalists for using the word "unprecedented" until it "seemed a synonym for 'routine.' " In "Watergate" the news media are most alive in the pipe dreams of those characters who imagine the laurels that await them after this little historical blip has run its course.
