noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
administers the affairs
▪ Our office administers the affairs of the Society.
affairs of the heart (=matters relating to love)
▪ I had little experience of affairs of the heart.
current affairs
domestic affairs (=public and political events inside a country)
▪ Colombia rejected any interference in its domestic affairs.
external affairs/relations
▪ the Minister of External Affairs
foreign affairs
internal affairs
▪ We have no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
lamentable state of affairs
▪ a lamentable state of affairs
love affair
▪ America’s love affair with the automobile
meddling...affairs
▪ He accused the US of meddling in China’s internal affairs.
public affairs
▪ He took an active part in public affairs.
sordid business/affair/story etc
▪ The whole sordid affair came out in the press.
▪ She discovered the truth about his sordid past.
▪ I want to hear all the sordid details!
sorry state of affairs
▪ It’s a sorry state of affairs when an old lady has to wait 12 hours to see a doctor.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
current
▪ Upper classes are often heavily loaded with current world affairs and the complicated workings of the United Nations and its agencies.
▪ All current affairs in the whole world of lamentable war and strife needed to be weighed in this balance.
▪ Robert Kee, current affairs experience in depth.
▪ It specifies regional programmes and high quality news and current affairs.
▪ They would talk politely of this and that; of current affairs or items of local interest.
▪ Traditional current affairs departments haven't quite figured out how to adjust their agenda to meet the shift.
domestic
▪ The Hanoverian kings were not uninterested in political life but they had difficulty comprehending the complexities of domestic and foreign affairs.
▪ The ruling dynasties and aristocracies required an essential stability in international as well as domestic affairs.
▪ There is no reason today why Paris should intervene massively in our domestic affairs.
▪ Catherine had trouble tending to their own domestic affairs though they had a handy expertise for the affairs of others.
▪ Both these men, under the Yorkists, were more concerned with national administration than with the domestic affairs of the household.
▪ Sixteen standing commissions were also created to advise on domestic and foreign affairs.
▪ Thereafter, his form fluctuated as irregularly as his training and his domestic affairs.
▪ The image of the government was one of strength in domestic affairs.
economic
▪ A member of the Council of Foreign Relations, his resume shows a continuing interest in international economic affairs.
▪ The inter-war period was one of great change in social and economic affairs.
▪ Generals resumed expounding their views on political and economic affairs.
▪ They were explicitly instructed to involve themselves in local economic affairs, education, medical care, prisons and road maintenance.
▪ The process of reproduction is still conspicuously missing from most discussions of economic affairs, as the following passage typifies.
▪ These are articulated, in particular, through finance and economic affairs departments - in the United Kingdom, the Treasury.
▪ We pray that the economic affairs of our land may be directed towards justice for all.
external
▪ We can see the results of this in both the internal and external affairs of the house.
▪ The rule protected States from intervention by other States in their external affairs and maintained the inherent bilateralism of international law.
▪ The Governor, representing the sovereign, is responsible for external affairs, defence and internal security.
financial
▪ Also when it refers to financial or economic affairs it is usually only bad news.
▪ In his last years, he had lived with his daughter Marian Brockamp, who handled his financial affairs.
▪ The communications and information revolution has permitted progressively greater central control over their financial affairs.
▪ She appointed officers, kept a watch over financial affairs, and made sure the work was progressing smoothly.
▪ It is the will of the controlling Labour group and its inability to manage financial affairs.
▪ In their financial affairs they have been abnormally secretive.
▪ Joint Financial Responsibility All members of the band are equally responsible for the band's financial affairs.
▪ And when the money starts rolling in, you will need an accountant to handle all of your financial affairs.
foreign
▪ Mr Kaufman, Labour's chief foreign affairs spokesman, sat at his bench shaking his head.
▪ In foreign affairs, he leaned heavily in the late 1970s on the United States as a counterweight to Soviet military power.
▪ During the session there had been some debate over the selection of the ministers of finance and foreign affairs.
▪ The establishment contained no department of foreign affairs.
▪ The author is Labour's foreign affairs spokesman.
▪ It was also a place where she and women students would meet over lunch to discuss foreign affairs.
▪ As with defence, foreign affairs are a difficult issue.
▪ Foreign policy Foreign affairs during this period were dominated by the Gulf crisis.
human
▪ And soft is also with human affairs.
▪ Would coursework in psychology enable me also to turn scholarship out on to human affairs?
▪ There are people who blame most of the problems in human affairs on communication failures, and they have a point.
▪ We want to know what lessons they teach us about human affairs.
▪ Bored with the assertion of the central place of boredom in human affairs, he wrote.
▪ This is what is meant by the proper condition of human affairs.
▪ The interpretation of the complex world of human affairs in terms of an experimental analysis is no doubt often oversimplified.
▪ Such indeterminism, or at least the appearance of it, is commonplace in ordinary human affairs.
internal
▪ Helsinki was full of pious declarations about the inviolability of borders and non-interference in internal affairs.
▪ They may regulate their internal affairs and their domestic commerce as they like.
▪ The memorandum of agreement stipulated that neither side should interfere in the other's internal affairs.
▪ A country's strategic geographical position might invite super-power attention and meddling in its internal affairs.
▪ Barbuda maintains a considerable degree of control over its internal affairs.
international
▪ Nor does it prevent states from making symbolic political statements about international affairs.
▪ There is, though, no overt mention of current international affairs.
▪ Does it matter, he asks, if media and public become less interested in international affairs?
▪ But the intelligence game is now an international affair where winning and point-scoring is the most important thing.
▪ The disaster in Rangoon had touched off an extensive reorganization of the bureaucracy dealing with North-South and international affairs.
▪ They were for use by statesmen and diplomats, working aids for the men engaged in the conduct of international affairs.
▪ At the time, 1948, the Cold War was becoming the pervasive issue in international affairs and domestic politics.
local
▪ They none the less strengthened the authority of the republican leaderships as they gradually extended their effective control over local affairs.
▪ Our question to the respondents dealt with participation in local affairs.
▪ They were explicitly instructed to involve themselves in local economic affairs, education, medical care, prisons and road maintenance.
▪ The Brady case may provide court conservatives another chance to limit the power of the federal government in state and local affairs.
▪ He's been diving into local affairs to help raise money for charity.
▪ At regular shire and hundred meetings royal orders were implemented and local affairs, including the administration of justice, transacted.
▪ That international impact on local affairs is true for all economies.
▪ It was very much a local affair with the town's voluntary groups playing the largest part in the proceedings.
military
▪ His personality and judgement were of most significance in the fields of foreign and military affairs.
▪ Supervisor of the military and foreign affairs.
▪ The eighteenth century was thus a period of slow evolution rather than radical change in military affairs.
▪ Of more concern, Nye and other specialists feel, is the growing political influence of the military in internal affairs.
▪ Over the next few years he was active in, first, local and soon national military affairs.
▪ On retiring from it he continued to take an active part in military affairs.
▪ Since strictly military affairs are involved this time, the eyes of the generals were opened, too ....
political
▪ Certainly by the spring of 1199 the pope realized that a major political affair was developing.
▪ The narrative line wavers, its constant ebb and flow in political affairs and love story creating a sense of drift.
▪ Over the following months, de Gaulle assumed total control over political affairs and substantially reduced Giraud's authority as Commander-in-Chief.
▪ Great concern was often expressed about lack of military interest in political affairs.
▪ Generals resumed expounding their views on political and economic affairs.
▪ In pre-industrial societies philosophers generally asserted that a clear division of labour in political affairs was unavoidable and beneficial.
▪ Sir James needed a man to run his political affairs, to manage the undercover campaigns of entertainment and bribery.
private
▪ Not in business, or in my private affairs.
▪ And then she found herself wondering what had prompted her to utter remarks concerning his private affairs.
▪ Yet in nature the whole business of death is a much more private affair.
▪ Both are considered totally private affairs, the secret of which is often not even shared between man and wife.
▪ Perhaps he couldn't bear to, perhaps it was just that he felt his marriage to be a private affair.
▪ Our secret films are private affairs, watched behind the eyes.
▪ Fieldwork in this style is a very small-scale, private affair.
▪ Buckingham Palace has always insisted that it does not comment on the private affairs of members of the family.
public
▪ Initially, mobilization had served to increase government control of public affairs.
▪ She too endured harsh criticism and partisan pressure for becoming openly involved in public affairs.
▪ If you fancy your chances, contact Carolyn Andrews at the public affairs department who will send you the necessary registration forms.
▪ He imported the commonsense realist philosophy, which included a demand that individuals be responsible for public affairs.
▪ For his last three decades Clarke played no part in science or public affairs.
▪ It took several years before we were able to reinstate a comprehensive schedule of public affairs programming on public television.
▪ Dodger great Don Newcombe heads up the public affairs department, one of the highlights of a top to bottom classy organization.
social
▪ The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror ... reduced coverage of political, social and economic affairs during the inter-war period.
▪ But at 738, 000, said Ad Melkert, the social affairs minister, the number is still too high.
▪ The inter-war period was one of great change in social and economic affairs.
▪ It is foolish to think, therefore, that any social, cultural affair or any language has remained the same.
▪ Moreover, it is tempting to translate them directly into human social and political affairs.
▪ Communication is also a social affair, usually taking place within the context of a fairly well defined social situation.
▪ We pray that in the coming year, this nation may know increasingly, your peace in economic and social affairs.
▪ But the Freedom party will keep key roles in the cabinet-finance, justice and social affairs.
whole
▪ On the Monday before her wedding-day, Diana gave serious consideration to calling a halt to the whole affair.
▪ You had to have a corporation behind the whole farming affair now.
▪ Just a few weeks ago he had been saying the whole affair would fizzle out and Banfield would sink back into anonymity once more.
▪ Heck, even the venerable New York Times devoted substantial ink to the whole overblown affair.
▪ A more devious theory is that the whole red-mercury affair is simply a fantasy dreamt up to make Mr Rutskoi look foolish.
▪ He drew every spoke in the wheels, and the whole affair looked as if it had been instantaneously petrified or arrested.
▪ Calls from every side for a full judicial inquiry into the whole affair grew louder.
▪ Undoubtedly to the disappointment of the leakers, Inman came through the whole affair like a breath of fresh air.
■ NOUN
business
▪ Angel's branch of the Solis de Gonzales, however, were no good at looking after their business affairs.
▪ Management must also consider the risk that the firm must assume in its business affairs.
▪ The reasons for this we consider to be legitimate business affairs.
▪ I always advise musicians to digest at least a certain amount of knowledge about their business affairs.
▪ These actions followed a Journal article in August that raised questions about the accuracy of company statements about its business affairs.
▪ Quite evidently it was not his habit to discuss his business affairs with strangers.
▪ Tom Lester is a specialist writer on business affairs Ranks Hovis McDougall spend around £18 million per year on electricity.
home
▪ He secured 11 ministerial jobs, including home affairs and justice, during the Fourth Republic.
▪ After that, suspects deemed to be an ongoing risk to national security can be incarcerated indefinitely by the home affairs minister.
▪ Wordsworth's later views on home affairs will be more appropriately discussed at the end of Chapter 2.
love
▪ What a cruel account is this of the Vicar's one and only love affair!
▪ A love affair By the 1960s, when my own association with the hotel began, the Algonquin was all legend.
▪ He realised that Marion's reticence was to protect the secret of her love affair with Ronald Travis.
▪ Tempesta, Lockwood and their classmates who already have licenses can continue their love affair with driving.
▪ She was notorious for having lots of love affairs which she told us all about.
▪ And I resumed my long-distance love affair with the Royal Ballet, which seems determined never to play a theater near me.
▪ Like most failed love affairs, there is no simple moral.
▪ Sometimes we cried about our broken families or unhappy love affairs.
spokesman
▪ Labour consumer affairs spokesman Nigel Griffiths warned Sega and Nintendo they had three weeks to act.
▪ Mr Kaufman, Labour's chief foreign affairs spokesman, sat at his bench shaking his head.
▪ The author is Labour's foreign affairs spokesman.
▪ Consumer affairs spokesman Mr Griffiths accused games firms of rigging the market - forcing shoppers to buy, rather than rent.
▪ Labour consumer affairs spokesman Nigel Griffiths has given Sega and Nintendo a three-week deadline to act.
world
▪ The motion had particularly pleased Mobuto who was desperate to bring Zimbala back into world affairs.
▪ Upper classes are often heavily loaded with current world affairs and the complicated workings of the United Nations and its agencies.
▪ Through the all-night watches he engaged officers in conversation, asked them questions about world affairs.
▪ Nevertheless, in their aftermaths, Britain's voice was undoubtedly strengthened in world affairs.
▪ The United States had to accept a more limited role in world affairs.
■ VERB
conduct
▪ He appoints a pontifical commission to conduct the administrative affairs of the state.
▪ She and Implexion had been conducting a casual affair for years; she knew him better than anyone.
▪ Until radicals grasped the need to conduct their affairs in absolute secrecy, their chances of conspiring effectively were remote.
▪ My father seemed to be happy to conduct his affairs through them for long enough.
▪ Equally, there are those who conduct their affairs with imagination and equanimity.
▪ It appeared to Nizan as the only realistic method of conducting human affairs in a civilised manner.
▪ To go to war in order to change the way another country was conducting its affairs was obviously illegal.
▪ How the House conducts its affairs, particularly on questions affecting taxation of our constituents, is of great importance.
involve
▪ Although no tax-payers' money was involved, the affair received intensive media coverage.
▪ She too endured harsh criticism and partisan pressure for becoming openly involved in public affairs.
▪ Mr Thompson always vehemently denied he was involved in criminal affairs.
▪ He had been a leather merchant and a tanner, and had been involved in some disreputable affair.
▪ She knew how much he hated relying on other people or being involved in their affairs.
▪ Nor did she get involved in the Dreyfus affair.
▪ Owen cursed himself for having been so foolhardy as to get involved in this affair.
▪ When dons became involved in worldly affairs, they observed, mistakes were inevitable.
manage
▪ As if all this were not enough, schools have started managing their own financial affairs.
▪ From that site, the company said, it will also manage worldwide drug regulatory affairs, business development and international marketing.
▪ His also wished to return to the primitive structure where the Church managed its own affairs.
▪ There is also the possibility that you might become incapable of managing your affairs.
▪ PricewaterhouseCoopers is accused of negligence in managing his affairs.
▪ But it had obvious difficulties for many students who found they could not manage both love affairs and study.
▪ It is the will of the controlling Labour group and its inability to manage financial affairs.
▪ Surely Rob was old enough to manage his own affairs!
meddle
▪ And if you didn't insist on meddling in large affairs that affect the globe, you would actually be charming.
▪ Gelbard in turn was accused by the government of meddling in national affairs.
▪ A country's strategic geographical position might invite super-power attention and meddling in its internal affairs.
run
▪ For a Liberal Democrat to argue that giving institutions the power to run their own affairs is a centralising measure is extraordinary.
▪ The critics assumed that blacks were inferior, incapable of running their own affairs.
▪ You can't spend the rest of your life running from one disastrous affair.
▪ Hospitals that have chosen to opt out of health-authority control and become self-governing will start running their own affairs.
▪ Measures affecting higher education saw the universities granted greater autonomy in running their own affairs.
▪ The second is the principles on which the modern world professes to want to run its affairs.
▪ Sir James needed a man to run his political affairs, to manage the undercover campaigns of entertainment and bribery.
settle
▪ It aims to treat all taxpayers with equal fairness and to settle their tax affairs impartially.
▪ On Dec. 4 King Bhumibol made a highly unusual intervention and called on the two sides to settle the affair peacefully.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
state of affairs
▪ Crisis has always been the normal state of affairs in our country's politics.
▪ It's a sad state of affairs when a leader can't take the time to address the true problems facing his country.
▪ I called on Labour Councillors: they agreed that the state of affairs on the site was shocking.
▪ Such a state of affairs provides the seller with a unique opportunity to exploit the relatively weak bargaining position of the investor.
▪ The Dubroca incident added insult to an already severely injured state of affairs.
▪ The random production might be regarded as the normal state of affairs, periodic production occurring through a rather special mechanism.
▪ This state of affairs is not, I think, an aberration, but is inevitable in the structures of higher education.
▪ True, and that's an unfortunate state of affairs.
▪ What might the repercussions be of this unprecedented state of affairs?
▪ When the state of affairs improved, Mark was promoted, but Colin was not ready.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Burton had been involved in a love affair with a woman who ended up taking most of his money.
▪ He accused his wife of having an affair.
▪ I had no idea that Mike had an affair with Carolyn!
▪ My wife thinks I'm having an affair with someone at work.
▪ Nick Leeson had to serve a prison term in Singapore for his part in the affair.
▪ The affair had been going on for years before her husband found out.
▪ The awards celebration is an annual affair in Hollywood.
▪ The court case was an awful affair that dragged on for months.
▪ The whole world was waiting for the outcome of the Watergate affair.
▪ Their affair lasted for six years.
▪ They finally confessed their secret love affair.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ According to one account, the Cornishmen felt that the affairs of the North were too remote to interest them.
▪ According to this official document, the blame for the Executive Life affair lay with former managers of Altus and the group.
▪ Angel's branch of the Solis de Gonzales, however, were no good at looking after their business affairs.
▪ For the Prince it was the beginning of a love affair.
▪ Other co-operation agreements were signed, covering economics, trade, transport, technical affairs, culture and drug policing.
▪ She too endured harsh criticism and partisan pressure for becoming openly involved in public affairs.
▪ The interpretation of the complex world of human affairs in terms of an experimental analysis is no doubt often oversimplified.