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Examples
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"It's important to show that it is a shark tank and it is sink-or-swim and Jeannie would not be able to work there if she didn't play like a boy and get as dirty as they did."
Kristen Bell Talks About Getting Dirty in House of Lies, Hope for a Veronica Mars Film 2012
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In this sink-or-swim round, the turtle sunk, and stunk.
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He paints himself as the one key figure in the coalition who can understand the concerns of those struggling in today's sickly economy — and temper the sink-or-swim approach of the Tories.
Nick Clegg insists Lib Dems will stop Britain repeating mistakes of the 1980s 2011
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MasterChef's Joe Bastianich blogs: It's sink-or-swim time
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But the great waves of American immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries swept ashore in a relatively harsh, sink-or-swim society where one had little choice but to fit in, and to make one's own way.
A Childish Question About Immigration, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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Wall Street has long been a young person's game—a sink-or-swim culture with a high burnout rate.
Go West, Investment Banker Matt Wirz 2011
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And children are worn out in a sink-or-swim atmosphere that threatens them with dire life outcomes if they are not climbing to the top of the heap.
What ‘Superman’ got wrong, point by point Valerie Strauss 2010
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With its $1 trillion TARP-style program enacted over the weekend, Europe's finance ministers threw all-in behind the euro in a sink-or-swim effort designed to save the super-currency.
Europe exercises nuclear option to save euro. Will it -- should it -- work? 2010
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The deputy prime minister argued there was an assumption on the centre-left that austerity measures were, by definition, regressive and rightwing: "And I think principally the reason is because collective memory of difficult budget decisions harks back to the 1980s, the harshness of the 1980s, north-south divide, sink-or-swim economics .."
Nick Clegg vows 'progressive' cuts will not repeat Thatcherite economics 2010
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Stagnant family incomes combined with skyrocketing tuition rates have pushed more parents into taking the sink-or-swim philosophy, experts say.
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