Even before the members had sharpened a pencil or clicked a mouse, the committee was shunted into a legal siding where it has remained unused.

BBC: Constitutional issues could stop Merkel buckling

Just as Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s sharpened up language with short sentences, so Beckett and Co introduced ambiguity into novels, even traditional ones, and especially into films, television, pop music and advertising.

ECONOMIST: Jérôme Lindon | The

The struggle is sharpened, though, because the advent of the euro has propelled European companies into a frenzy of mergers and takeovers, intensifying competition.

ECONOMIST: The euro-zone

His quarrel with Mr Wasmosy sharpened to the point where the president, as commander in chief, ordered him into 30 days of disciplinary arrest for impertinence.

ECONOMIST: Paraguay