Question: In describing a previous rule change, one could write:

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> "The school administration updated their rules last week to say that red is no longer a color."
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but many times (mostly in the news), they will add something such as "quietly", implying deception, or with other words, more than one mental image for the same statement.

My description is off, but I'm hoping someone knows what I'm referring to, and can help me identify what this device would be called.

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> Ex1. "The school board last week, **quietly** passed a rule stating that red is no longer a color".
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> Ex2. "The ranking member stated, **without evidence**, that red seemed to imply emotion rather than a visual cue".
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Both of these statements could have been written without the bold word.

Answer: 
"Upfront" is the word I most commonly see used for this. You can use "upfront payment" if you're looking for a noun.

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> Upfront: paid or obtained in advance
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> [Cambridge Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/upfront)
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As in:

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> So the tutor asks for $50 upfront and the remaining $50 upon completion.
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Or:

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> So the tutor asks for an upfront payment of $50 and the remaining $50 to be paid upon completion.
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This is a bit informal and may seem somewhat out of place in a contract or formal agreement, for example. In such cases I would probably expect to see something like "initial payment" or the details of when it should be paid written out without any single word or term used to describe it (e.g. "$50 to be paid prior to the commencement of the service").
*Advance* and *deposit*, which appear in previously posted answers, are probably the best general-purpose terms for such payments, but some professionals, particularly lawyers, prefer to refer to them by the term ***retainer***. A retainer can be either a payment for having the professional on standby, with an understanding that specific services will be paid for later, as they are rendered (a 'true retainer'), or a deposit for future services, from which the fees will be deducted as the services are rendered.