President Kim's soft words do not seem to have been heard by the government's defence chiefs.

ECONOMIST: The Koreas

Mr Day has shown himself quick in political repartee, deft at answering bluster with disarmingly soft words.

ECONOMIST: Canada

Indeed it is the Obama doctrine, President Barack Obama's message to Europe, stripped of diplomatic niceties and soft words.

BBC: Robert Gates on Nato's dim future

However, soft words aside, Mr Thach was being realistic.

ECONOMIST: Nguyen Co Thach

It starts with the words of a writer, Jim Foley, who, in a cottage on the soft and airy west coast of Ireland, is drafting a long love letter to his dead wife, Kate.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

The album-opening "Our Hell" sets the tone quickly: Nothing says "grim resignation" quite like the words, "Our hell is a good life, " as Haines issues a soft and subtle, vaguely obtuse argument for complacency in misery.

NPR: 'Our Hell': Making Misery Beautiful