(1) I have also been having a desultory email discussion of some issues with moral philosopher Keith Burgess-Jackson lately.

(2) In the absence of accurate accounting, political debate over some of the most momentous issues of the age is proceeding in an empirical vacuum, and has become much more confused and desultory than it needs to be.

(3) These prompt Abe to think about his own identity, his long-ignored Jewish heritage and even vague ideas of Christian conversion - possibilities he explores in a desultory way.

(4) As we near the end of the trail, Thomsen and I have a desultory conversation about how the Sierra are changing: more traffic, more big houses, more kids concerned only with what's on sale at the mall.

(5) Then with dawning horror you realise you're screwed - eye contact is made and you're doomed to desultory , banal small talk the whole way until you get into Waverley.

(6) One is that the language is the language of human discourse, and is subject to the same redundancies and occasional verbiage that we all encounter in desultory conversation.

(7) Some Islamist groups today claim to want to re-establish the post, but their discussions lack rigor, are desultory , and thus far have no wide appeal.

(8) Conversation was desultory and difficult, centring mainly around Amarinth's unwillingness to devote enough of her time to homework.

(9) After a few desultory job interviews, she discussed the idea with her husband and established an office in the spare bedroom, with an old wallpaper pasting table for a desk and banana boxes as filing cabinets.

(10) A few minutes later, the river ford hove into sight, and desultory fire from the enemy began to interrupt the quiet of the dawn like toy cap guns.

(11) Slave patrols, rather than being desultory or inadequate, turn out to be one of the chief ways that the southern states enforced their peculiar institution.

(12) It seemed initially that the new Indian government wanted to accomplish what it had not succeeded in 30 years of desultory negotiations under the Shimla agreement.

(13) Some putter along in a slightly languid and desultory fashion.

(14) A few Maori left in the pa fired a few last desultory shots on the stranded soldiers, until a second battle began.

(15) There is desultory chitchat on the verandah as evening slides into pitch-dark night.

(16) So much for my thought that the Justice Department would mount a desultory investigation and then give up.

(17) The salad may have been a bit desultory and almost Parmesan-less, but the beautifully moist carpaccio of (as it turned out, virtually chilli-less) beef more than made up for it.

(18) We don't want aimless acts any more than we want desultory negotiations.

(19) Long after the muezzin's evening call to the Muslim faithful drifts from the minarets across the dusty rooftops of Peshawar, the desultory rattle of gunfire can be heard.

(20) The first incoming flight, organised by the CIA, was welcomed with desultory bursts of anti-aircraft fire.