Prior Loans, Future Pain?
Bank Lending Jumps,
Providing a Cushion,
But Outlook Isn't Good
Providing a Cushion,
But Outlook Isn't Good
By JON E. HILSENRATH, ROBIN SIDEL and KAREN RICHARDSON
Since midsummer, bank lending to businesses has risen at the fastest rate in more than 30 years, providing a cushion for the economy as lenders cut back on mortgages and other forms of loans.
clunky, pry, sinister, tumultuous, dripping feed
Flat-screen-television sales, including those of Sony's Bravia-branded liquid-crystal-display models, have been growing strongly world-wide as more consumers trade in their clunky tube-based sets for sleek new models with high-definition screens. But that has come hand in hand with steep price declines as many producers vie for a slice of the market.
A decade after the birth of e-commerce, some retailers are still struggling to get their online acts together. Some companies frustrate shoppers with clunky checkouts and limited selections, while others still don't sell anything online.
When you look at Second Life today, you may say, "I don't like the graphics." Or, you know, "It's clunky. It runs too slow." But you have to bear in mind that in just a few years, this is gonna look like walking into a movie screen. And that's just gonna be such an amazing thing.
Prying Open European Pharmacies
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
For the first time in many European countries, nonprescription drugs are being sold over the counter at outlets other than pharmacies.
Summoned before a U.S. House subcommittee investigating the computer-and-printer maker's prying into personal phone records and what one House member called "sleaze" tactics, a cast of nearly two dozen top H-P executives, lawyers, security officials and outside investigators jammed the front rows of a Capitol Hill hearing room.
Technology is also opening up new formats. Serialisation is making a comeback: a firm called DailyLit divides e-books into small chunks for drip-feeding by e-mail. Harlequin, a Canadian publisher of romantic fiction, sells short-fiction e-books for reading on PCs or other devices in a lunch hour.
The second room in the show is full of his drawings dating from 1968 on. Many of these pictures—of sinister heads and hands, and ordinary boots, clocks and sandwiches—are painted in that distinctive fleshy pink of his, at once cheerful and bloody. He drew them with dark outlines, like moody comic strips, but they are also sinister. The Vietnam war was raging on and the president, he thought, was an embarrassment. Guston was no longer satisfied with black marks on paper. Time was running out, he felt, and he still had stories to tell.
Philip Guston
Philip Guston 圖示
Rummel angled the crate into the trunk of his 1962 Chevy Impala and, a few days later, lugged it into his half of a two-story home in Medford, Mass. He pried it open with a hammer to discover that he was now in possession of a Picasso.
Episode Two: The Glory Of Byzantium
Andrew travels to Istanbul to immerse himself in the tumultuous world of the Byzantine Empire. He decodes the iconography of the art of the period and explains its continuing relevance.
drip-feeding
tumultnoun [C or U] FORMAL
a loud noise, especially that produced by an excited crowd, or a state of confusion, change or uncertainty:
You couldn't hear her speak over the tumult from the screaming fans.
From every direction, people were running and shouting and falling over each other in a tumult of confusion.
The financial markets are in tumult.
tumultuous
adjective
very loud, or full of confusion, change or uncertainty:
Dame Joan appeared to tumultuous applause and a standing ovation.
After the tumultuous events of 1990, Eastern Europe was completely transformed.
adjective
making you feel that something bad or evil might happen:
The ruined house had a sinister appearance.
A sinister-looking man sat in the corner of the room.
sin・is・ter
sin・is・ter・ly ━━ ad. sin・is・ter・ness ━━ n. sin・is・tral
━━ a. 左の; 左ききの; 左巻きの ((貝など)).drip (LIQUID)
verb -pp-
1 [I or T] If a liquid drips, it falls in drops, or you make it fall in drops:
Water dripped down the wall.
She dripped paint on the carpet.
2 [I] to produce drops of liquid:
Watch out - the candle's dripping.
drip
noun
1 [C] a drop of liquid:
drips of paint/sweat
2 [S] the sound or action of liquid falling in drops:
All I could hear was the drip of the rain from the roof.
3 [C] UK (ALSO IV) a method of slowly giving someone liquid medicine or food through a tube into one of their veins, or a piece of equipment for doing this:
He was on a drip for three days.
dripping
adjective [after verb]
very wet:
It's so hot outside - I'm absolutely dripping (wet).
Jim had just been on a run and was dripping with sweat.
pry (OPEN)
verb [T] MAINLY US
to move or lift something by pressing a tool against a fixed point:
[+ adjective] The car trunk had been pried open and all her equipment was gone.
pry (ASK QUESTIONS)
verb [I] DISAPPROVING
to try to obtain private facts about a person:
As a reporter, I was paid to pry into other people's lives.
I hope you don't think I'm prying, but has your boyfriend ever lived with anyone before?
She wanted a private holiday away from prying eyes (= where no one would be trying to see her).
- Main Entry:
- clunky
- Pronunciation:
- \ˈkləŋ-kē\
- Function:
- adjective
- Inflected Form(s):
- clunk·i·er; clunk·i·est
- Date:
- 1965
: clumsy in style, form, or execution clunky thriller> <clunky earrings>
prior (EARLIER) Show phonetics
adjective [before noun]
1 SLIGHTLY FORMAL existing or happening before something else, or before a particular time:
The course required no prior knowledge of Spanish.
They had to refuse the dinner invitation because of a prior engagement (= something already planned for that time).
See also prior at priory.
2 prior to sth before a particular time or event:
the weeks prior to her death
the future noun [S]
1 a period of time that is to come:
Sometimes I worry about the future.
I wonder what the future holds for (= what will happen to) you and me.
I'm sure at some point in the future I'll want a baby.
We need to plan for the future.
Do you plan to leave London in the distant future or the near future?
I can see those two getting married in the not too distant future (= quite soon).
2 in grammar, the form of a verb which you use when talking about something that will happen or exist:
In the sentence 'Who will look after the dog?' the verb phrase 'will look' is in the future.
future Show phonetics
noun
1 [C] what will happen to someone or something in the time that is to come:
Torn apart by war, its economy virtually destroyed, this country now faces a very uncertain future.
She's a very talented young singer, Mike and I personally think she's got a great future ahead of her!
The future isn't looking too rosy for these companies.
2 [S or U] the chance of continuing success or existence for something:
With falling audiences, the future of this theatre is in doubt.
future Show phonetics
adjective [before noun]
1 happening or existing in the future:
Of course we'll keep you up to date with any future developments.
There's an old superstition that young girls going to bed on this night dream of their future husbands.
2 In grammar, the future form of a verb is used when talking about something that will happen or exist:
How do you say that in the future tense?
futurism Show phonetics
noun [U]
a new way of thinking in the arts that started in the 1920s and 1930s which attempted to express through a range of art forms the characteristics and images of the modern age, such as machines, speed, movement and power
futurist Show phonetics
adjective, noun [C]
a futurist painter
futuristic Show phonetics
adjective
strange and very modern, or intended or seeming to come from some imagined time in the future:
At the unspoiled North Bay, three white pyramids rise like futuristic sails from the sea.
Her latest novel is a futuristic thriller, set some time in the late twenty-first century.
注意l 期貨為 futures Show phonetics
plural noun
agreements for the buying and selling of goods, in which the price is agreed in advance of a particular future time at which the goods will be provided:
the futures market
She works in futures.
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