Still, ask five enthusiasts what the term "independent watchmaker" means and you'll get five different answers.
Charles Clarke was quizzed about the shameless adoption of the term "independent" - the standard description, indeed the official description, for the private sector in the UK as opposed to schools that are state-run or "maintained".
Three-term Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, is barred from running again because of term limits.
Mr Lieberman, Al Gore's running-mate in 2000 and a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, said he would stand as an independent candidate in the mid-term elections, potentially splintering the state's Democratic vote.
He thinks the Defence Department should be audited by an independent body and wants 12-year term limits for representatives and senators.
The New York Independent System Operator has defined short-term energy storage devices like flywheels and batteries as frequency regulators, allowing them to participate in regulated markets.
Joe Lieberman , the incumbent, has said he will run as an independent in November's mid-term election, potentially fracturing the Democratic vote, if he loses the primary to an anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont.
The Bank Credit Analyst, an independent research company, suggests a longer-term reason for the attractiveness of Asian shares: the region's companies are making more money.
In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.
To say that Scotland would face a more difficult fiscal position in the medium to long-term is not to say that an independent Scotland could not handle that, but to say that a serious debate is required about HOW it would handle it.
Karzai's term is up in May, but an independent commission has set the election for August 20.
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The strategic partnership will both VTB and BTG to expand and establish a long-term presence in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Latin America.
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It was a term that inspired the development of a new economically independent sub-culture, simultaneously exciting and terrifying.
Running as an independent allows Traficant to avoid a primary race against eight-term Democrat Rep. Tom Sawyer, who was placed in the same district as Traficant when the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature redrew the boundaries.
Senator Ozouf said a recommendation, by the independent Fiscal Policy Panel, to accelerate capital investment in the short term, had been considered but was rejected.
His remit is to find ways to align bankers' incentives more closely with their employers' and shareholders' long-term fortunes, and to look at the role of independent directors.
It may surprise some readers that we were worried about long-term fiscal trends more than a decade ago, but independent budget analysts and the CBO recognized that rising health care costs and the aging of the baby boomers would put enormous pressure on the federal government.
Mr Stewart's political problem is that in Westminster, the term "original thinker" is not a compliment, and independent judgement is often considered a vice, not a virtue.
The ECB insists that its actions are exceptional, a short-term response to dysfunctional markets and that it is just as independent from bullying politicians as it ever was.
During his second term, he vetoed the renewal of the charter for the independent Second Bank of the United States, a private institution that kept the federal government's deposits interest-free, and issued uniform paper currency.
Independent fact checkers have said that offshore drilling will have no short-term, and little long-term, impact on gas prices, but McCain has said it would be useful as a symbolic gesture to signal U.S. resolve not to be dependent on foreign oil.
Women are strong and independent and have no sense of preciousness, so why would you use a term like tomboy to describe that?
According to Mr Eyerman, he is acting in a way similar to how an independent judge would act in a Chapter 11 proceeding, giving Alstom short-term protection from creditors so that its managers can try to show that the firm is worth financing in the capital markets.
It's the term independence leader Xanana Gusmao coined as the prospective name of his new independent nation.
The other circumstance when long term care insurance is vital is when you live alone and are highly independent (which then translates into isolated).
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Nonetheless, the term multitasking originally comes out of the computer science literature, and refers to independent computing threads run at the same time.
Weicker, a Connecticut Republican, was defeated in his bid for a fourth Senate term in '88, and two years later was elected governor as an independent.
Asked about the long term future for the Northern Rock, and whether or not it would remain independent, he said only that the board of directors would review all options in due course.
Monitor said an independent administrator would take over the running of the trust before coming up with proposals for the long term.
An independent administrator will take over the running of the trust before coming up with proposals for the long-term.
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