① The talk-show host was trying to help, but only alienated her viewers when she suggested that they cope with a tough economy by checking themselves into a spa.

② The stimulus package has alleviated the pangs of the Great Recession, but times are still tough.

③ The meaning of this ancient text is ambiguous - either we are missing some cultural context, or either the writer actually wanted to be mysterious.

④ I've been accepted to two amazing graduate programs, one inexpensive and close to home, and one in a big, exciting city. I'm ambivalent - I don't know how I'm going to decide.

④ When I asked you if you thought we'd get married some day, your ambivalence hurt my feelings.

⑤ In the U.S., whenever opponents of a war want to suggest that the war is unwinnable, they point out all the ways in which the war is analogous to the Vietnam War.

⑥ Once the dictators was assassinated, the country fell into total anarchy, as none of the opposition groups were strong enough to seize power.

⑦ After Principal Smitters raised test scores over 60% at her school, it was only a matter of time before she was anointed superintendent by a fawning school board.

⑧ While the cosmetics division of this company has many female executives, it is an anomaly - in the rest of the company, sadly, only 4% of management positions are filled by women.

⑨ "Josie! Stop antagonizing your little brother! Give him back that firetruck and tell him you're sorry for pulling his hair!"

⑩ As an environmentalist, Mr. Subramanian had nothing but antipathy for the mining drilling in and polluting his hometown.

⑪ Many parents of teenagers are concerned by their indolent teen's apathy about the future. Few teens are totally apathetic, however - many get quite excited about video games, flirting, or trips to the mall.

⑫ I'm sorry, but this putative letter from George Washington that you found at a garage sale was clearly apocryphal - it is riddled with anachronisms(for instance Washington was long dead by the time silent film were invented,) and also, Washington most certainly didn't refer to Martha Washington as "hey baby".

⑬ My mother is so angry she wasn't the first person we called when the baby was born - I'm hoping to appease her by spending Christmas at her house this year.

⑭ She ruefully concluded that the "Pot Pit Diet" was a scam and had made no appreciable difference in her appearance - after four times, she had lost three-quarters of a pound.

⑮ The judge's rulings were truly arbitrary - one defendant got community service for stealing a television, and another got three years for the same crime.

⑮ It doesn't really matter which brand of baking soda you buy - just arbitrarily pick one so we can get out of this grocery store before dinnertime.

⑯ To win at Jeopardy, you must be full of arcane knowledge.

⑯ The wizard's shop was full of arcanum, from Latin-to-Ancient Greek dictionaries to entire books on magic spells relating only to elephants.

⑰ The school's archaic computer system predated even floppy disks - it stored records on tape drivers!

⑰ Sometimes, when you look a word up in the dictionary, certain definitions are marked "archaic" - unless you are a Shakespeare scholar, you can safely ignore those archaisms.

⑱ The arduous hike up rocky terrain was all worth it once the hikers reached the summit.

⑱ It was an arduous winter on the prairie; the family barely survived.

⑲ She's so articulate that I'm sure she'll make a good lawyer.

⑲ The group voted on who would be the best spokesperson, able to articulate their needs to the panel.

⑳ The archaeologists dug up countless artifacts, from simple pottery shards and coins to complex written tablets.

⑳ The girl's room was full of the artifacts of modern teenage life; Justin Bieber poster, Twilight books, and a laptop open to Facebook.