It was once seen as a Scarlet Letter to have your movie go straight to DVD.

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Is that like a scarlet letter?

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So, if a bank applies for the program and gets rejected, that's like a financial scarlet letter.

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By her last term, Snowe writes that a senator's willingness to reach across the aisle had become a "scarlet letter" instead of badge of honor.

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Hawthorne, most famous for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, also wrote a short story collection called Mosses from an Old Manse, in which he christened the house.

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