veneer of politeness

It cost him much effort to maintain a veneer of politeness.

But beneath their veneer of politeness, each was clearly directing comments at the other.

His hostility, under a veneer of politeness, was un- mistakable.

His veneer of politeness had sloughed off, his eyes were narrow, keen, and cold.

There was always a veneer of politeness.'

His voice had been soft, his manner bland, but beneath the velvet veneer of politeness lay the cold steel of determination.

The veneer of politeness he had adopted to Stephanie at the beginning of the evening and the apparent interest in Colette was wearing thin.

"Civility," she explains, suggests a "veneer of politeness spread thin over human relations like a layer of marmalade over toast."

Though most con- cealed their feelings behind a veneer of politeness whenever addressed directly, Sam was sure that the locals didn't like elves much.

'You still haven't told me the purpose of this call,' Alyssia pointed out, deciding to put an end to this surface veneer of politeness.

Then he turned to face Picard squarely, andfora moment... just a moment... there seemed the slightest disruption of his veneer of politeness.

Chaos and freedom were close bedfellows and when that veneer of politeness, of community, of sensibility was destroyed, it was difficult to tell one from the other.

The idea, I am sure, was to prepare the listener for the inspired lunacy to come, and in one way "Pierrot Lunaire" does have a past, being a little like traditional Viennese society with the veneer of politeness scraped away.

At one moment, Mr. Nikunam abandoned the veneer of politeness, telling him, in effect, that all the constitutional law in the world, as cited by Mr. Nouri, would not help him when weighed against the Shariah, or Islamic law.

The project is based on a conviction that a better understanding of speech levels and hierarchy will make an important contribution to the general understanding of Japanese society, and ultimately help Westerners to look beyond the veneer of politeness in dealing effectively with their Japanese counter-parts.