1.   She was making hard work of plucking the goose.

2.   It has been compared to plucking a goose -- the idea is to extract the maximum in feathers with the minimum of hissing.

3.   The most talented are masters at plucking the goose without causing a lot of undue hissing on the part of the victim.

4.   For instance, workers tell visitors that geese were plucked alive.