Ms. Millett deserves credit, too, for what must be called her terrible honesty.

A former debutante from Milwaukee recalls her turbulent 14-year relationship with Charles Mingus, "jazz's angry man," a musical virtuoso known for his terrible honesty and outrageous behavior.

She loathed him for proposing with such terrible honesty.

You said you loved me for my terrible honesty.

For a long time, Justen looked at her, at the silver hair, the green eyes, and the dark, open orderliness within that screamed out a terrible honesty.

Only I know that I have made no progress at all since then, that in moments of terrible honesty I call her Anansa, and she sadly answers me.

What, after all, is feminization, and why should it be contrary to the impulse toward "terrible honesty?"

"You have some of your brother's terrible honesty in you," he said, and Scaurus did not think it was altogether a compliment.

In rock, pretty voices sound like fabrications; raw ones insist on what the cultural historian Ann Douglas, quoting Raymond Chandler, calls "terrible honesty."

New Yorkers embrace those values with a terrible honesty.