1.   But these expressions are often only convenient figures of speech, shorthand ways of talking about the average or representative members of a community.

2.   Contrast is a rhetorical device, a shorthand way to make a point without bothering with transitions.

3.   Even before that, cloning had already become a shorthand way to talk about all that many fear in science.

4.   Publishers, however, have no such qualms, freely seeking endorsements because they provide a shorthand way of appealing for attention from booksellers and reviewers.

5.   The exclamation point is a shorthand way for statisticians to indicate the factorial system, Gavalas explained.

6.   This shorthand way of recording dates is a bequest from computer programmers of years past.

7.   To overcome that problem, a number of astronomers have spent the last few years developing a shorthand way to analyze the light coming from distant objects.

8.   What both plays have in common is a parade of character types, a shorthand way of including just about every problem gay men face.