smattering

• “A smattering," is how Barry described the warm reception.”

  USATODAY.com - Spurs' Barry finds his range in the nick of time

• “Gayatri proved to be an able companion through the years -- even picking up Tamil (Prahalad could speak a smattering of Gujarati).”

  Forbes: Inclusive Visionary

• “I used to be semi-fluent in Japanese and I could speak a smattering of Mandarin enough to order in a restaurant and get on and off the bus in the right spots.”

  Don't Be Silenced

• “As an international businessman, I speak a smattering of languages, including Arabic.”

  CNN Transcript Jan 6, 2006

• “Indians -- who could speak a smattering of English -- that he might be bound and remain, or accompany them to see the Big Knife tortured.”

  Ella Barnwell A Historical Romance of Border Life

• “The majority of them, however, were content with what I have just called a smattering of education.”

  Present Conditions In China

• “Like many Arabs, he can speak a smattering, and a very fair one, of three or four languages, but he can't write a line in any one of them.”

  There was a King in Egypt

• “But the absence of the smattering is a much more dangerous and fatal thing if the man wishes to do business with the Argentine and the Transvaal, or to enter into practical relations of any sort with anybody outside his own parish.”

  Post-Prandial Philosophy

• “Thanks to my Nyonya maternal grandmother, I speak a smattering of Malay.”

  TODAYonline

• “They have learnt from long experience that the Brits are not always natural linguists, and so to speak a smattering of our language is a shrewd move on their part.”

  Telegraph.co.uk: news business sport the Daily Telegraph newspaper Sunday Telegraph

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