"I don't think politics really came up except in the most tangential way," Mr. Gore said after an hourlong meeting with 30 religious, educational and business leaders from the community.

But even Ellen, the most tangential of the characters, has some lovely barbed monologues, including one in which she describes how she knew her childhood had ended when her mom turned her bedroom into a craft room.

There are two reasons for giving them only the most tangential treatment here.

Toys have just the vaguest, most tangential connecton to utility.

There was so little to begin with, he had no choice but to contact or recontact everyone who had had even the most tangential relationship with the man.

They suffuse scenes with sound images that sometimes bear only the most tangential relationship to the things they bring to life - and often, not even that.

The movie is forever digressing so that Mr. Yankovic can offer media spoofs that have only the most tangential relation to the story.

His books, even when at their most tangential and imaginative, are honest in a way the vast majority of literature isn't.

That's because Internet fever has spread in recent months to other kinds of technology companies and even to companies with only the most tangential connections to the Internet.

As I said, "Kate and Leopold" has only the most tangential relation to reality, and therein lies its slender charm.