Word: belaying
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fact a member of a sophisticated kidnapping ring that abducts not for ransom but for hire--usually by politicians, businessmen or criminals who want to scare rivals into submission. Aguilar was highly trained for the ring's SWAT-style ops--to fly single-engine planes, for instance, and belay from a helicopter. "We weren't like the sloppy ransom kidnappers," he says. "We had an honor code...that dictated that you don't commit violence if you don't have...
Some readers have zero tolerance for the genre of seagoing adventures. To such landlubbers, nautical language all sounds distressingly like shiver-me- mizzenmast or belay-the-taffrail or somesuch, and they quickly jump ship in search of books written in more accessible prose. Too bad for them, because they have therefore missed the high-sailing novels of Patrick O'Brian...