Everyone from President Bush to Ann Coulter was using it to denote wimplike, Volvo-driving softies too spineless for dangerous times and too given to speaking French.

It's getting hard to find cameraless mobile phones.

We didn't expect this, Kantamala said later of the exchange, so I took this opportunity to say what I think. Said Press Secretary Mary Hoyt later, Mrs. Carter would appreciate that kind of forthrightness. It takes it out of purely coffee talk and makes it something meaningful.

Amidst the aseptically-perfumed bare functionality, typifying a hospital ward, a pretty and petite elfin teenage girl stirs – tawny hair all tousled and bed-headed, lips full yet petulant.