China's diplomatic style has evolved since the early 1990s, when its language was far more shrilly anti-American.

ECONOMIST: China

When I did, I found myself in a shrilly lit, tiled space (reminiscent of a butcher shop) decorated here and there with pictures of Pope John Paul II.

FORBES: Editor's Note

So, less shrilly, did the Dutch, Swedes and Austrians.

ECONOMIST: Agenda 1999

The joke is told tenderly by Paul Reiser, urbanely by Martin Mull, seductively by the sublime Sarah Silverman, gravely and with much loving, superfluous detail by George Carlin, and shrilly, with an emotion bordering on hysteria, by the inspired pixie Gilbert Gottfried.

NEWYORKER: The Aristocrats

James has been the best player in basketball for a long time, winner of three of the last four most valuable player awards, and the uproar that met his move from Cleveland to Miami, which was shrilly and rooted in some Mesozoic idea of the obligations of professional athletes, had zero to do with his talent on the court.

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