strike a false note
hit a false note

And that is why this experiment strikes a false note.

I can't strike a false note when I'm writing about this part of the world."

His British uniform struck a false note and people avoided him.

In fact, the whole clinic struck a false note.

Something about his airy manner struck a false note in Daniel's mind.

Her simple, direct prose never strikes a false note.

But no performer strikes a false note, even when making a topical joke.

Something about those words struck a false note.

Why did the question strike a false note?

She greeted him slightly gushingly, and that again struck a false note.

Following recent transit cleanups, that strikes a false note.

The cable struck a false note with American diplomats who read the cable.

The two men's small talk had struck a false note, and their quarry had been sensitive to it.

She is afraid that she has overacted, struck a false note.

And the authors occasionally strike a false note.

"But mainly the language, which is extraordinarily funny and touching, never striking a false note.

But has he struck a false note?

The critics disliked After the Fall, complaining that it struck a false note!

Finally, the old debate about whether the Bolshoi dancers resort to circus tricks has always struck a false note.

Only his comment that "somewhere there may be a woman who reads her obituary without envy" strikes a false note.

The surprise is that Bistro le Steak hardly strikes a false note.

Amid all this repentance and regret, a Bacchanalian fest strikes a false note.

In this situation, it strikes a false note for us as journalists to cover the crisis simply by quoting each side as blaming the other.

He made a good-living, wine-and-food-society impression in which only the slow, rather cunning blue eyes struck a false note.

I've never seen him hit a false note.

Moving somewhat obviously toward denouement, the film hits a false note or two.

All of the stories are told in a clear, understated prose that never hits a false note.

Janney and Jenkins simply never hit a false note.

And in 50 years, Lansky Brothers style has never hit a false note.

Clonfert spoke quite good French and he meant to help, but he hit a false note from the beginning.

Don't you think, though, that actors who are really gifted have an ear for that, they can't hit a false note?

On that, Old Blue Eyes hits a false note.

The performances are also consistently strong, and Mark Webber in particular, in the central role, never hits a false note.

This is odd, and it misuses Mr. Kline, who seems unable ever to hit a false note.

"On the field I never feel like I'm hitting a false note," said Mr. Barlow, who hopes to complete three rows a day.

'Idol's' Final 4 Show Hit a False Note

Suddenly, however, the exhausted Sonalal hits a false note, noticed only by Raju who, enraged, strikes at the snake charmer's calf.

It came down to the two of us at the mike, spelling word after word in an awkward duet, each waiting for the other to hit a false note.

But when they tried the line "Too liberal for Erie County" on Mr. Gorski, many observers say it hit a false note.

Perhaps the narrative voice breaks down at such a critical dramatic point because the scene is already hitting a false note: the ghost's message is profoundly moving, but off-key.

The note of religious consolation is lightly and skilfully introduced: it could easily have hit a false note, but somehow it adds to the pathos and austerity of the speaker.

One day, while performing for some foreign journalists in Delhi, he hits a false note; the enraged snake bites his leg and Sonalal instinctively bites back, leaving "two wriggling cobra halves" splayed out on the ground.

Conley's writing voice even has something of a macho swagger, and once in a while it hits a false note, as if she were building her broad case against the medical profession in order to get back at Gerry, the vulgar meanie.

Upperstall.com wrote "Madhuri gives a wonderful, insightful performance as the self-respecting educated woman married into a family of male chauvinistic upper class landlords and who is humiliated by her husband when she objects to his misdeeds, never hitting a false note."

URBAN OUTFITTERS, so successful at peddling hipsterdom that it is practically the new Gap, may have hit a false note when it marketed a $28 T-shirt that said "Voting is for old people."

Also among the entrees we found great variety and embellishment, most of which worked, although the spring roll with fake crab hit a false note in an otherwise first-rate item that featured mouth-watering seared yellowfin tuna encrusted with sesame seeds, the dish festooned with black beans.