slipperiness, cling to scraps of individuality, slippery slope

Marcel Proust—who was born on July 10th 1871—is a tough read, known for his long, winding prose and many ruminations on time and the slipperiness of memory. A new graphic novel captures the essence of his work beautifully

Essay

The Joy of (Outdated) Facts

By GEOFF NICHOLSON

Older books of supposedly impartial information can be a useful reminder of just how slippery facts really are.

On the anniversary of the collapse of Bear Stearns, The Wall Street Journal looked at whether the government-assisted sale was a necessary step or a slippery slope to more bailouts. The New York Post checks in with Bear's former chieftans, Alan Schwartz and James E. Cayne.



Most important, she uses a wide range of stories — of public-works projects and persecutions, romance and re-education — to show how China’s masses clung to scraps of individuality amid the deadening conformity of the Communist system.

cling (HOLD) Show phonetics
verb [I + adverb or preposition] clung, clung
to stick onto or hold something or someone tightly, or to refuse to stop holding them:
We got so wet that our clothes clung to us.
They clung together in terror as the screams grew louder.
One little girl was clinging onto a cuddly toy.
She clung to the handrail as she walked down the slippery steps.

clingy Show phonetics
adjective
clingy material
a clingy skirt

cling to sth phrasal verb
to refuse to stop believing or hoping for something:
She clings to the hope that her husband will come back to her.

scrap
n.

1. A small piece or bit; a fragment.
2. scraps Leftover bits of food.
3. Discarded waste material, especially metal suitable for reprocessing.
4. scraps Crisp pieces of rendered animal fat; cracklings.

tr.v., scrapped, scrap·ping, scraps.

1. To break down into parts for disposal or salvage.
2. To discard as worthless or sell to be reused as parts; junk.

[Middle English, from Old Norse skrap, trifles, pieces.]

slippery slope noun [U]
a bad situation or habit which, after it has started, is likely to get very much worse:
You're on a slippery slope once you start lying about your age!

slippery
adjective
1 wet, smooth or oily so that it slides easily or causes something to slide:
slippery soap
a slippery floor
The road was wet and slippery.

2 INFORMAL DISAPPROVING Someone who is slippery cannot be trusted:
He's as slippery as an eel - you can never get a straight answer out of him.
He's a slippery customer (= person), that Tim, I've never felt comfortable with him.

adj., -i·er, -i·est.

1. Causing or tending to cause sliding or slipping: a slippery sidewalk.
2. Tending to slip, as from one's grasp: a slippery bar of soap.
3. Not trustworthy; elusive or tricky: "How extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is" (James Agee).

[Alteration of obsolete slipper, from Middle English, from Old English slipor.]

slipperiness slip'per·i·ness n.

NOUN

[MASS NOUN]

The quality or state of being slippery:a play about the slipperiness of language