Generally portrayed as angelic and sexless, the Tricia Nixon of the Top-40 set, Karen Carpenter possessed a deep contralto that actually undercut her brother's saccharine fantasies.

Shostakovich can seem to be asking for this kind of treatment, but his music is actually undercut by it.

But these technicolor pictures end up looking formulaic, uniformly handsome: there's a kind of slick beauty that actually undercuts the individuality of the subjects.

"And it actually diminishes your power, and it actually undercuts the President."

All this actually undercuts what the aquarium does right.

"All the aides and campaign strategists who said it was going to be 'family values night' actually undercut a very stirring presentation by the First Lady," he said.

But there are times when a film is actually undercut by its ending, times when even the most tactful viewer will have a hard time sustaining polite silence.

Why this matters: if word of mouth is the real advertising, then what you've done is use old-school ad techniques to actually undercut any chance you have to generate new-school results.

The bombshell dropped by the prosecutor in the William Kennedy Smith case raises disturbing questions about whether judicially imposed gag orders, which are designed to preserve fair trials, actually undercut them.

The reason they should be prepared to do so is that such state support actually undercuts, rather than promotes, the cohesive national identity that evangelicals have wanted to restore or recreate.