Word: jerks
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Having guessed, the hangman picks out the right sized rope, selects a stool of appropriate height, calls in one or more assistants to give the feet of the condemned a downward jerk after the stool has been kicked away...
Planes are flung into the air from battleships and cruisers by catapults. Originally all these were operated by compressed air. Then it was found that a charge of black powder (a slow explosive), would launch the plane with a more gradual thrust, less of a jerk. But the powder blast sometimes causes accidents, once blew a seaman overboard, makes as much noise as a 5-inch gun. Last week the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics ordered a newly designed "blast reducer" for all explosion-catapults. Built somewhat like an automobile muffler ?a cylindrical chamber perforated with many small holes?...
...whist with friends, stopped at midnight to make them some oyster stew. At dawn she marched off, unsupported, between two guards. She bantered with newsmen, posed for photographers, shook hands with the warden, kissed the guards, walked firmly up the steps to the gallows. Death was instantaneous, for the jerk of the noose cut off her head...
Operator Vivian scooped up the loose ends of wire, held them tightly together in one hand. An arc burned his hand. To close the arc he squeezed harder. The harder he squeezed, the more current leaked into his arm, made it jerk crazily. Had he not been standing on a cork-insulated floor, had he not kept clear of a well-grounded duct a few inches from his foot, the 220-volt current would have killed...
...wary. They considered drowning him. Finally they took him. shackled between three other elephants- to a cotton field, chained him to two trees. Hans Nagel, keeper of the Houston Zoo, was elected executioner. He approached to close range, raised a big-game rifle, fired. Black Diamond howled, tried to jerk away. Nagel fired again, could not penetrate the elephant's skull.* While the monster wildly trumpeted and twisted, Nagel kept on firing, exhausted all his ammunition. He asked for more but it was not until 60 shots had crashed into Black Diamond that he sagged and toppled. Circus performers...