In one of the fragments, barely legible, was the stilted phrase, 'he is the son," repeated twice in two separate memoranda.

He and Mr. Morell wished to avoid stilted phrases without relying on contemporary idioms, which, Mr. Echols said, would disrupt the desired feeling of "historical remove."

And once on her own ward, her nurses, who liked her because she was sensible and fair and kind as well as very pretty, made it their business to murmur conventional stilted phrases.

His first baseball story was an account of a game in Chicago written "in imitation of the stilted, archaic phrase of Bible language."

And the translation, by John Crowfoot, with its stilted phrases, fails to capture the book's color and energy.

She leaned forward, studying the stilted phrases more intently, and ran the index finger of her right hand lightly along the relevant lines.

Grant heard him explain patiently that it was an offense to drive with a number-plate that is "not easily distinguishable" and smiled to himself at the stilted, textbook phrase.

I couldn't always catch his mumbling or the stilted phrases and ceremonial longhand he spoke.

She laughed a little at the stilted phrase, learned from her instructor.

Abruptly, annoyed at her stilted phrases, Killashandra stepped forward and swiftly embraced Nahia, kissing her on both cheeks.