How to Use happy talk in a Sentence

happy talk

noun
  • In other words, stick to the happy talk, the light stuff.
    Jason Gay, WSJ, 17 Nov. 2022
  • The more the Ls accumulate, the less the happy talk works.
    Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 6 Apr. 2021
  • But they won't be saved by out-of-touch happy talk or shifting blame in ways that don't ring true with voters.
    Joel Mathis, The Week, 5 Apr. 2022
  • The roots of the consensus may have been the military believing its own happy talk about the resolve of the Afghan army.
    Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 23 Aug. 2021
  • After a lot of happy talk over the past half year, the real Biden presidency has emerged.
    Rich Lowry, National Review, 10 Sep. 2021
  • But the way this season is playing out looks a lot like one of those Texas teams where all the happy talk made the underachievement look that much worse.
    Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, 26 Sep. 2021
  • Democrats are meeting that with more happy talk of unity and normalcy.
    Charles M. Blow New York Times, Star Tribune, 9 Nov. 2020
  • This happy talk of it being completed—just look at the language, the celebration, NASA's planning, and so forth for the launch.
    Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 25 Aug. 2022
  • The situation is critical in many places across the United States and all the happy talk and wishful thinking in the world is not going to wash that away.
    CBS News, 28 June 2020
  • Or what may be worse, happy talk, which in time erodes credibility.
    Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 18 July 2018
  • More happy talk came from city Finance Director Rob Dubow.
    Stu Bykofsky, Philly.com, 5 Mar. 2018
  • The right was now a font of happy talk about the dawn of a new age of liberty based on free-market economics and American firepower.
    Jacob Heilbrunn, The New Republic, 23 Jan. 2020
  • For all of the happy talk, though, Trump came under pressure to end his lengthy trade dispute with China that is hurting other nations as well.
    Washington Post, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Reading between the lines, Biden brought a much tougher message to Europe than what the happy talk about sacred obligations suggests.
    Noah Millman, The Week, 14 June 2021
  • That the will appears to exist justifies Tuesday’s happy talk.
    Jim Newell, Slate Magazine, 6 June 2017
  • Second, Halliburton largely dispensed with the happy talk on its call.
    Liam Denning | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2019
  • And beneath all the happy talk, behind the scenes, there are troubling signs that the system California regulators have proposed will not be up to the task.
    David Roberts, Vox, 12 Dec. 2018
  • But one prominent commentator didn't join in the happy talk.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 23 Mar. 2022
  • For Democrats, the happy talk will mostly be about this year being the harbinger of an extremely successful midterm election.
    Ed Kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, 22 Dec. 2017
  • But let's not get distracted by all the post-mortem happy talk from the same leaders who repeated assured us that their secret bid was strong and competitive.
    Mark Naymik, cleveland.com, 18 Jan. 2018
  • The tone was a sharp contrast with President Trump, who was frequently criticized for offering happy talk about the pandemic.
    W. James Antle Iii, Washington Examiner, 29 Dec. 2020
  • But the generals’ chorus of happy talk defied a year-long stream of intelligence assessments that the insurgency had gained strength.
    Washington Post, 9 Aug. 2021
  • The White House needs to reassure Americans not with happy talk but with daily medical briefings that are candid and complete.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 4 Oct. 2020
  • But Albrecht said the strategy goes beyond corporate happy talk.
    Ryan Faughnder, Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2021
  • There’s more than happy talk to such exercises, Dr. Gomez says, especially when the fun stuff like the cheers is accompanied by activities that allow for putting the slogans in practice.
    Howard Lafranchi, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Oct. 2017
  • But the numbers are the numbers, and, notwithstanding Trump’s relentless happy talk, the coronavirus epidemic has, as of this week, already produced some fifty thousand American dead.
    Susan Glasser, The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2020
  • In that now-infamous press conference, Biden unloosed a farrago of wishful thinking, happy talk, half-truths, and blatant deceptions.
    Rich Lowry, National Review, 20 Aug. 2021
  • Major unions see a plot to strip away labor protections with happy talk of government support that will never materialize.
    Peter S. Goodman, New York Times, 26 Oct. 2017
  • Several paragraphs below the happy talk, though, the company unveiled a disappointing outlook for the second quarter, giving earnings guidance of 38 to 43 cents per share.
    Spencer Jakab, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
  • People have died and people are going to die because President Biden decided to rely on happy talk instead of reality.
    ABC News, 29 Aug. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'happy talk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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