ne'er-do-well

• “In some ways his performance in The Kids Are All Right is a sequel of sorts to the role that first brought him to Hollywood's attention, as Laura Linney's ne'er-do-well brother in the 2000 indie hit You Can Count On Me.”

  The Guardian: Mark Ruffalo: the 'journeyman' who's impressed Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Michel Gondry

• “Researchers gave 105 students at the University of British Columbia a description of a generic ne'er-do-well—for example, he finds a wallet on the street, takes the cash and tosses the wallet.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Week in Ideas: Christopher Shea

• “If securities regulators across the nation work together more effectively, Mr. Borg adds, they could reverse the traditional calculation by ne'er-do-well securities firms and brokers that "the reward has always outweighed the risk, even on bad products.”

  The Wall Street Journal: In Alabama, Beware the Borg

• “We'll see that he's the kind of ne'er-do-well who will bring his 12-year-old daughter on a bounty-hunting expedition.”

  Exclusive: Henry Thomas Guest-Stars on The Mentalist

• “Ed Norton stars in this film about twin brothers -- one a professor at Brown University, the other a redneck -- who come back together in Oklahoma when the ne'er-do-well, marijuana-dealing brother is implicated in a criminal matter.”

  The Huffington Post: Ed Koch: Leaves of Grass (A Mayor Koch Review)

• “However, we still hadn't found an actress for the peach role of the nutty, born-again aunt who tries to run everyone's life, particularly her ne'er-do-well son's, by using literal advice taken straight from her Bible.”

  The Huffington Post: David Dean Bottrell: Farewell, Mrs. Cleaver

• “You can hear it in the tight-lipped anguish of Lady Hester Collyer, the suicidal heroine of "The Deep Blue Sea," who has left her proper husband for a ne'er-do-well test pilot.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Terence Rattigan, Forgotten Centenarian

• “He connected to dots on how Howard Hughes secretly funneled cash to Nixon's ne'er-do-well brother Donald (who dreamed of starting a "Nixonburgers" fast-food chain).”

  The Huffington Post: Michael Hudson: Digging Deep: A Treasury of Books About Journalism

• “Besides, had not her own cousin, -- though a remote and distant one to be sure, the black sheep, the harum-scarum, the ne'er-do-well, -- had not he come down out of that weird North country with a hundred thousand in yellow dust, to say nothing of a half-ownership in the hole from which it came?”

  THE ONE THOUSAND DOZEN

• “Second is Bellamy's half-brother, Jacques (Clovis Cornillac), a ne'er-do-well who's temporarily tapped out, apparently not an uncommon situation with him.”

  The Huffington Post: Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Inspector Bellamy

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