"Everything was just a jagged edge in my head," was how Norman characterized his state of mind before his respite.

It's not a country that sank back into the sort of authoritarian state planning mode that characterized Communist regimes before 1991.

These techniques characterized super-speedway stock car racing in the days before 200 m.p.h. laps became common.

It felt strange to be coming to the end of the year under blue skies, and without the frenzy that characterizes the weeks before an English Christmas.

His playing stripped away many of what have come to be considered the affectations and exaggerations that characterized Chopin interpretation before his arrival.

"What it offers is the freedom that probably characterized schooling at its best before the 20th century," Mr. Gatto said.

The one thing that characterized Millstone before this point was its treatment of employees.

All they had in common was their sense of urgency: the mass hysteria that characterizes the week before Christmas.

Such an exodus would quash the last opportunity to rebuild the multi-ethnic fabric that characterized the Croatian republic before the war.

He characterized the current resolution before the Security Council as "weak."