They appeared taken aback.

And I was rather taken aback.

I was very taken aback myself.

Mr. Bickersteth appeared somewhat taken aback, sir.

I was so taken aback, I said anything that popped into my sleepy head.

The Taliban seem to have been taken aback by the public and media reaction to the attack.

But several of the MPs had also been taken aback on discovering that when Obama spoke to them, he read from an invisible teleprompter.

He was, he says, taken aback. Good afternoon, said the stranger, regarding him as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles like a

One of the families I interviewed, Tom and Karen Robards, were taken aback when, as young and successful New Yorkers, their first child was diagnosed with Down syndrome.

But several of the MPs had also been taken aback on discovering that when Obama spoke to them, he read from an invisible teleprompter. This had misled his audience into thinking that he was speaking extemporaneously, a skill that is highly regarded in India.

PARIS Why do revolutions so often take professional diplomats by surprise? Is there something in their DNA that makes them prefer the status quo so much that, more often than not, they are taken aback by rapid changes, neither foreseeing them nor knowing how to respond once they begin?