And Haitians say many of the candidates have been campaigning so long, they're tongue-tied.

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For someone who makes a living out of communications, I have consistently been tongue-tied around Nelson Mandela.

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In talking about his art, Mr Stella is neither tongue-tied nor theory-bound.

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The tongue-tied and hard-fisted Mr Yanukovich did little to win this election.

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Ms. Voskreskenskaya, now pregnant with a fifth child, sat mostly tongue-tied.

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Then there was oil, in particular Sibneft, a large company now striving for respectability, whose spokesmen get tongue-tied when asked about Mr Berezovsky's exact role in it.

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Mr Riordan has the opposite of the Irish gift of the gab: he is frequently too tongue-tied to say anything, and when he does manage to speak he often uses the wrong words.

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Even children as tough as these grow shy and tongue-tied on stage in front of their peers, but there is always that look of pride and a pure joy at being the one selected.

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Now New Labour has grown old in office: not only the notoriously tongue-tied Mr Brown but even that smoothie, Mr Blair, have struggled to preserve the alliance of working and middle-class voters who once supported it.

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Mikulas Dzurinda, a former prime minister and opposition leader, says that the real danger to the Slovak language comes not from tongue-tied ethnic Hungarians, but from the debasing of Slovak by foul-mouthed chauvinists in the government, such as the leader of the Slovak National Party, Jan Slota.

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