After he finished his own game, he gave each of them a stern talk individually on how draws don't win games or matches.

He would have to have a stern talk with Gobby, he realized with a sense of foreboding.

Instead, they gave him a stern talk and told him never to do it again.

After a stern talk from The Fat Controller, all the engines dream of what would happen if they could not prepare the railway for business.

I was going to have to have a long, stern talk with that ridiculous part of me.

She would have to have a stern talk with Debbie about including extraneous information instead of plain hard fact.

But my publisher had a stern talk with me and said, 'Hey, this is a real project.'

Some stern talk is needed, preferably in private so as not to stiffen the confrontation.

She'd have a stern talk with Tellani about keeping track of her lovers, surely a simple enough task even for so loving a woman as Tellani.

But his stern talk about welfare mothers turned her off.