Such overworked cliches [...] combine with the other characteristics cited to make the poem reminiscent of another age, yet meretriciously so."

The immediate solution was for Poirot to heavily insist that Mrs Franklin had actually done what she had meretriciously whined about doing - taking her own life - which no one ever believed she would do.

"We are perhaps the most famous and prestigious university brand name in the world [but] I think it might be time for a note of caution to be sounded about selling that brand too freely and too meretriciously."

Suddenly, as if transported into a golden age, we were at the Metropolitan Opera listening to Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, Thomas Hampson and other splendid Puccinians restore the musical drama to a meretriciously overproduced old work.