The phrase public office is a public trust, has of last become common property.
I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing.
…a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper --a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.
There is a phrase around here that probably a few years ago didn't use very often. But it's called 'compartmentalization' and I would suggest that the person down in the White House is not the only one who has the ability to do that.
When they say 'teach the controversy' their ringing phrase they want us to pretend to students that scientists are arguing whether evolution took place. This argument is not taking place.
People often ask how I can reject the phrase 'woman writer' and not reject the phrase 'Jewish writer' - a preposterous question. 'Jewish' is a category of civilization, culture, and intellect, and 'woman' is a category of anatomy and physiology.
I'm a fiction writer, and I do write essays, but I am not a poet. And I absolutely reject the phrase 'woman writer' as anti-feminist. I wrote an essay about this as far back as 1977, at the height of the neo-feminist movement.
It was the Spice Girls who messed it all up. And obviously, the appropriating of the phrase "girl power", which at that point overrode any notion of feminism, and which was a phrase that meant absolutely nothing apart from being friends with your girlfriends.
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase "It is the busiest man who has time to spare."
Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.