Writers have characterised some relationships as arbitrary, whimsical, awkward or confusing, yet celebrated the carefully studied asymmetry of others as an artistic tour-de-force.
The critical point to be stressed is that all these qualities are neither arbitrary nor whimsical.
Where the old anthropologists had expected an orderly procession upward to man's highest type, he found a whimsical rabble.
But we cannot divorce the principle of nonmaleficence from evidential requirements without legitimating the most whimsical decisions imaginable.
There are many clever ones, though: cute, thoughfful, creative, ingenious, whimsical, stunningly inventive.
In a discipline that celebrates bluntness, practicality and monomania, he was cursed with a whimsical imagination.
Frivolous, whimsical choices may harm people directly and indirectly by weakening common values that secure them with a sense of togetherness, essential for human well-being.
It is a paradox of this book that all its poetic evocations and its whimsical style are employed to describe its author's inarticulateness.
