Word: commandeer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...himself, then returned to speak to the crowd from the balcony of the local post office, assuring them he would remain until help arrived. "I have decided to stay," he shouted through a megaphone, "to calm your anguish and try to save you." He proclaimed the post office his command post, called his 13-man escort to attention and, amid a burst of cheers, had the U.N. flag hoisted...
...dappled pool not far from the clamor of Waikiki Beach, two female dolphins poke their heads out of the water, waiting for a command. "O.K.," says Louis Herman, founder and director of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, "now let's try a tandem creative." Two graduate students, positioned at opposite ends of the 50-ft. tank, throw full body and soul into communicating this message to the animals, Phoenix and Akeakamai. First the humans ask the dolphins to pay attention by holding a finger high in the air. Then they tap the index fingers of each hand together, forming...
What is going on here? Do the dolphins actually understand the command tandem creative as a request to make some joint artistic statement through movement? Did they communicate in some fashion to choose a routine and coordinate their movements? In order to spit, for instance, they both must take water into their mouths before they leap into the air -- a trick that takes some forethought. Other requests for tandem creatives have yielded a variety of results, including a synchronized backward swim culminating in a simultaneous wave of the tails. Or could it be that these routines are nothing more than...
...practical applications. Studies of animal cognition and language have yielded new approaches to communicating with handicapped and autistic children. Some scientists are pondering ways to turn intelligent animals like sea lions and dolphins into research assistants in marine studies or into lifeguards who can save the drowning upon command...
...PEOPLE SPORTING BUTTONS THAT SAY "POOR, UNeducated and Easy to Command," they're not looking for jobs, they're making a statement. Leaders and some rank-and-file members of Pat Robertson's CHRISTIAN COALITION are wearing the buttons as a defiant badge of honor. The Washington Post used those unflattering terms in an article criticizing the preacher's fundamentalist followers...