Throughout the document, seemingly innocuous phrases often concealed a powerful clash of principles.

They received, rather, a conversation constructed at random out of a vast stock of innocuous phrases in various tones and voices.

With such an innocuous phrase, he said, "Parents would look at it or might even say it, and then the kids look at them and say, 'Oh, man."'

Seemingly innocuous phrases in the legislation gave the SCP director considerable power.

She felt slightly defensive for, despite the innocuous and formal phrases, she sensed an undercurrent in his speech.

The blame of which I speak is indirectly assigned, a consequence of that seemingly innocuous phrase "role model."

After Mr. Ray asked her to repeat a few innocuous phrases onto the tape, he asked her whether she knew another defendant in the case.

So, in that obscenely innocuous phrase, he "accepted no." Is he therefore guiltless of driving her to her coffin?

Gerald could drop into a frenzy at the slightest provocation these days; anything from an innocuous phrase to the sight of a long corridor which he assumed led directly to the outside world.

"It sounds like such an innocuous phrase."