Word: backwardation
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...third grade is also the last grade where children learn simply by listening to their teacher ; from then on, they learn from books. In St. Louis, the teachers chose 100 youngsters whose basic deficiencies hinted at trouble as their studies got harder and more formal. Though none was really "backward," i.e., below average I.Q., all had fallen behind because of illness, or too much study too early. Some, because of their failures, had also become problems in the classroom...
...slid backward, gathering speed, as the band played and the crowd cheered and the yellow pennant on the conning tower fluttered gaily. The diminutive Rickover had to strain to get a look, when the Nautilus splashed into the icy Thames and floated away in flotsam from the launching cradle. As four tugs fumed up and nudged her toward a fitting-out dock, the Nautilus rode high in the water (her reactor and other heavy parts have not yet been installed). As she disappeared out of sight of the stands, the sun suddenly disappeared with her and the fog closed...
...cleared 7 ft. The trouble with the news, from the standpoint of the orthodox: 1) instead of using the conventional running take-off from one foot, Jumper Dick Browning takes off from both feet; 2) instead of rolling over the bar on his side, he goes over in a backward somersault. To make matters worse, Browning is not a trackman at all, but a member of the Illinois tumbling squad...
...same idea: Browning was clearing prodigious heights. They set up a standard high-jump crossbar, and Browning cleared 6 ft. 6 in., a good height for any high jumper. A bit later, he tumbled himself over the 7-ft. mark. His technique: a running, springing aerial twist into a backward handspring, which supplies momentum for a final backward double somersault up & over the bar. Some sportswriters began calling Browning "the potential track sensation of the century...
These unpleasant experiments have already brought practical results. Proof that a person facing backward is more likely to survive an airplane crash than one facing forward supported only by a body-cutting belt has convinced the Military Air Transport Service that it should turn its seats around. Some British Commonwealth airliners have already made the change. They have had several crashes, from which all the backward-facing passengers have walked away unhurt...