Sentences with phrase «merely rhetorical»

This latest missive by FAN is quite clearly merely rhetorical flourishes based on a loose citing of references and appeals to the infallibility of Jim Hansen.

The gesture was merely rhetorical.

Most of the «1980s artists» over whom such a fuss was made have turned out to be merely rhetorical, or inept, or otherwise fallen by the wayside.

Essayist and naturalist Diane Ackerman (author of A Natural History of the Senses, The Zookeeper's Wife and many other books) tackles this musing — and not merely rhetorical — question in The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us, examining what geologists are calling our current epoch, the Anthropocene, or Human Age.

One GOP lawmaker has dissed his spending plan as a «crap budget,» and it gets worse than merely a rhetorical slap.

While calling it a disorder might be merely rhetorical, it's clear kids spend significantly more time inside than outside.

All sectors need to contribute pragmatic - not merely rhetorical - solutions to solve the problem.

Did he mean that God actually demands so much of us, or did he mean only that God asks a reasonable regard for others, the extreme form of the statement being merely rhetorical?

That may well sound more like «native» English, but at the cost of seeming faintly repetitious, merely rhetorical, and without the elegant little development of the Hebrew — which, merely through the verb, moves from an intimation of light as a garment in the first half - line to an explicit simile of God's wrapping light around him like a cloak in the second half.

It doesn't occur to Sheldon or Leslie that words are merely rhetorical weapons to make a physics theory politically or academically dominant.

Not exact matches

In fact, same - sex marriage advocates can now take the rhetorical high ground: «At a time when heterosexual couples are merely cohabiting, at least we believe in marriage as an institution.»

Giambrone's claims that «Justice Scalia's legal theory has no ultimate framework for holding the government accountable before God» and that he sees natural law as merely a «rhetorical cover for the preferred moral agenda of any given judge.»

Presenting Chávez as the messiah is not merely a convenient rhetorical trope for the ruling party.

You said, «You can try to limit God's omnipotence by postulating innumerable scenarios, -LSB-...] it merely proves that one has to utilize nonsensical rhetorical devices to justify disbelief in God.»

Whether they are invalidating a law protecting partially born babies, or upholding one restricting the speech of pro «life counselors, their invocation of constitutional principles merely provides rhetorical cover for decisions dictated by ideological goals.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was merely making a «rhetorical response to a criticism» by LaVar Ball when he tweeted of Ball's son LiAngelo and two UCLA teammates that he «should have left them in jail» in China.

They now claim that their statements were merely «expressions of opinion and rhetorical hyperbole... not assertions of fact» — which could be proven false.

Well, that just throws up so many questions; but I'll merely say that looking at a great deal of old figurative painting, from Giotto to Matisse, seems a lot more real and a lot less rhetorical than the experience of looking at Stella, particularly if you define «rhetorical» as something designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which lacks meaningful content.

What you consider proper debate is a rhetorical mud slinging fest which would merely waste the time of good scientists.

The defendants have argued that their statements were rhetorical hyperbole, and that fraudulent is often used in a colloquial sense to merely suggest a work is «bogus» or «flawed» as the EPA suggests.

They now claim that their statements were merely «expressions of opinion and rhetorical hyperbole... not assertions of fact» — which could be proven false.

At one level, our results are entirely unsurprising: In light of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, most dissenting opinions are merely political and rhetorical tools aimed at trying to forestall mitigative action.

The information explosion has merely expanded the scope of the rhetorical carnage.

Instead, the statements merely expressed Dr. Baker or Mr. Smyth's opinions, and, at most, constituted «rhetorical hyperbole.»