Beneath his reassuring words, though, a complicated diplomatic minuet is clearly under way in northern Asia.

CNN: A complex security minuet has started in North Asia

He did a long and awkward minuet on abortion and other issues of concern to social conservatives.

CNN: Elizabeth unplugged

The dissenters dissent and the supporters support, and the whole thing is as mannered as a minuet danced at the court of Louis XVI.

BBC: An elaborate ritual

The result has the elegance of a formal dance - a kind of minuet, in which the participants advance and retreat according to well-understood rules, until they have arrived at a satisfactory outcome.

BBC: A Point of View: Mourning the loss of the written word

Both planets are "fluffy, " gaseous, Saturn-size worlds, where temperatures quickly rise and fall from balmy to near boiling, as the planets periodically swing close to their stars and then spin away in an elliptical minuet, the researchers reported.

WSJ: Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate