In years past, the formula was multitudes of obsequious staff and a heavy handed management style.

CNN: Paths to Top Service

On the one hand, with its comforting array of British character actors and its kindly, not to say obsequious, approach to a royal triumph over circumstance, it touches the most conservative chords of period drama.

NEWYORKER: The King's Speech

The best-known case may be that of Kareem Amer, the pseudonym of an expelled student from al-Azhar University, who blogged about violent clashes between Christians and Muslims (often a taboo subject), mockingly referred to President Mubarak as a deity, and criticized Muslim leaders for their obsequious support of him.

NEWYORKER: The Contenders

He tried to help them in any way he could, offering to render the sorts of little services one might expect from a secretary or a valet rather than a colleague, for which he was reproached by a writer of his own generation, who called him obsequious and servile.

NEWYORKER: ?lvaro Rousselot��s Journey