Circumlocution

• “When I think about more recent efforts by the federal government to regulate and standardize higher education, I recall, from Little Dorrit, Dickens prescient description of the Circumlocution Office, the "most important Department under Government," whose great accomplishment is to be foremost among all government departments in practicing the great art of "HOW NOT TO DO IT.”

  The Huffington Post: Brian Rosenberg: Hard Times for These Times

• “But the Circumlocution Office sets a standard to which other offices of government can only aspire.”

  The Huffington Post: Brian Rosenberg: Hard Times for These Times

• “Sometime pretty soon the BBC will air its new production of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, a book about enduring, patient love as well as an angry satire on the debtors 'prisons of the time and, one of this author's enduring themes, the hells of bureaucracy (here epitomized by the Circumlocution Office of the British government).”

  Reading

• “I think some troll has gone to the “George Will School of Circumlocution”.”

  Think Progress » VIDEO: On Anniversary Of Oklahoma City Bombing, Armed Right-Wing Activists Accuse Obama Of Tyranny

• “Circumlocution and hesitation - "thoughtfulness", it was called - was his style.”

  The Huffington Post: Clancy Sigal: A Disappointed Democrat? You bet

• “It's obvious that Dickens attacks the cruelty of poverty, the stupidity of debtors 'prisons, the idleness and conceit of the upper classes, and the inefficiency of government bureaucracies (which he so wonderfully calls the "Circumlocution Office").”

  Les Leopold: Little Dorrit Gives Wall Street a Haircut

• “Those familiar with Air Canada runarounds will feel sympathy and then mounting horror as they realize that the aforementioned airline is a model of brisk efficiency and excellent customer relations compared to the Circumlocution Office run by Indian customs officials.”

  Archive 2008-08-01

• “But his good friend had a weakness which none of us need go into the next street to find, and which no amount of Circumlocution experience could long subdue in him.”

  Little Dorrit

• “Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned him.”

  Little Dorrit

• “‘And after all,’ cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, ‘though I can’t deny that the Circumlocution”

  Little Dorrit

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