Pew Research Center polling shows little change in views from 2008 to 2012; modest differences based on gender or age.

For the year, the average gained 42.88 points, or 2.26 percent, to close at 1,938.83 - but that modest difference tells nothing of the intervening storm.

Some call for intensified social services, while others argue that such programs have made only modest differences.

That is a very modest difference.

But wouldn't it be interesting if more modest differences came to the fore?

But a ridiculous turf war prevented the two chambers from reconciling their modest differences.

While sound propagates pretty well in water of the same temperature, it gets easily disturbed by even modest differences in water temperature.

Exept for the modest differences between their attitudes toward other candidates, the Simon and Dukakis backers looked remarkably similar on most political measurements.

"But they were modest differences," he said, "and a fair amount of the differences were due to what preceded the divorce."

In a campaign criticised as bland and dull it would be silly to bury their relatively modest differences.