text
stringlengths 9
2.4k
|
|---|
The special text editors have sets of special characters assigned to existing keys on the keyboard. Popular DOS-based editors, such as TheDraw and ACiDDraw had multiple sets of different special characters mapped to the function keys to make the use of those characters easier for the artist who can switch between individual sets of characters via basic keyboard shortcuts. PabloDraw is one of the very few special ASCII/ANSI art editors that was developed for Windows.
Image to text conversion.
Other programs allow one to automatically convert an image to text characters, which is a special case of vector quantization. A method is to sample the image down to grayscale with less than 8-bit precision, and then assign a character for each value. Such ASCII art generators often allow users to choose the intensity and contrast of the generated image.
Three factors limit the "fidelity" of the conversion, especially of photographs:
Examples of converted images are given below.
This is one of the earliest forms of ASCII art, dating back to the early days of the 1960s minicomputers and teletypes. During the 1970s, it was popular in US malls to get a t-shirt with a photograph printed in ASCII art on it from an automated kiosk containing a computer, and London's Science Museum had a similar service to produce printed portraits. With the advent of the web, HTML and CSS, many ASCII conversion programs will now quantize to a full RGB colorspace, enabling colorized ASCII images.
|
Still images or movies can also be converted to ASCII on various UNIX and UNIX-like systems using the AAlib (black and white) or libcaca (colour) graphics device driver, or the VLC media player or mpv under Windows, Linux or macOS; all of which render the screen using ASCII symbols instead of pixels.
There are also a number of smartphone applications, such as ASCII cam for Android, that generate ASCII art in real-time using input from the phone's camera. These applications typically allow the ASCII art to be saved as either a text file or as an image made up of ASCII text.
Non fixed-width ASCII.
Most ASCII art is created using a monospaced font, such as Courier, where all characters are identical in width. Early computers in use when ASCII art came into vogue had monospaced fonts for screen and printer displays. Today, most of the more commonly used fonts in word processors, web browsers and other programs are proportional fonts, such as Helvetica or Times Roman, where different widths are used for different characters. ASCII art drawn for a fixed width font will usually appear distorted, or even unrecognizable when displayed in a proportional font.
|
Some ASCII artists have produced art for display in proportional fonts. These ASCIIs, rather than using a purely shade-based correspondence, use characters for slopes and borders and use block shading. These ASCIIs generally offer greater precision and attention to detail than fixed-width ASCIIs for a lower character count, although they are not as universally accessible since they are usually relatively font-specific.
Animated ASCII art.
Animated ASCII art started in 1970 from so-called VT100 animations produced on VT100 terminals. These animations were simply text with cursor movement instructions, deleting and erasing the characters necessary to appear animated. Usually, they represented a long hand-crafted process undertaken by a single person to tell a story.
Contemporary web browser revitalized animated ASCII art again. It became possible to display animated ASCII art via JavaScript or Java applets. Static ASCII art pictures are loaded and displayed one after another, creating the animation, very similar to how movie projectors unreel film reel and project the individual pictures on the big screen at movie theaters. A new term was born: "ASCIImation" – another name of "animated ASCII art". A seminal work in this arena is the Star Wars ASCIImation. More complicated routines in JavaScript generate more elaborate ASCIImations showing effects like Morphing effects, star field emulations, fading effects and calculated images, such as mandelbrot fractal animations.
|
There are now many tools and programs that can transform raster images into text symbols; some of these tools can operate on streaming video. For example, the music video for American singer Beck's song "Black Tambourine" is made up entirely of ASCII characters that approximate the original footage. VLC, a media player software, can render any video in colored ASCII through the libcaca module.
Other text-based visual art.
There are a variety of other types of art using text symbols from character sets other than ASCII and/or some form of color coding. Despite not being pure ASCII, these are still often referred to as "ASCII art". The character set portion designed specifically for drawing is known as the line drawing characters or pseudo-graphics.
ANSI art.
The IBM PC graphics hardware in text mode uses 16 bits per character. It supports a variety of configurations, but in its default mode under DOS they are used to give 256 glyphs from one of the IBM PC code pages (Code page 437 by default), 16 foreground colors, eight background colors, and a flash option. Such art can be loaded into screen memory directly. ANSI.SYS, if loaded, also allows such art to be placed on screen by outputting escape sequences that indicate movements of the screen cursor and color/flash changes. If this method is used then the art becomes known as ANSI art. The IBM PC code pages also include characters intended for simple drawing which often made this art appear much cleaner than that made with more traditional character sets. Plain text files are also seen with these characters, though they have become far less common since Windows GUI text editors (using the Windows ANSI code page) have largely replaced DOS-based ones.
|
Shift_JIS and Japan.
In Japan, ASCII art (AA) is mainly known as Shift_JIS art. Shift JIS offers a larger selection of characters than plain ASCII (including characters from Japanese scripts and fullwidth forms of ASCII characters), and may be used for text-based art on Japanese websites.
Often, such artwork is designed to be viewed with the default Japanese font on a platform, such as the proportional MS P Gothic.
Kaomoji.
Users on ASCII-NET, in which the word "ASCII" refers to the ASCII Corporation rather than the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, popularised a style of in which the face appears upright rather than rotated.
Unicode.
Unicode would seem to offer the ultimate flexibility in producing text based art with its huge variety of characters. However, finding a suitable fixed-width font is likely to be difficult if a significant subset of Unicode is desired. (Modern UNIX-style operating systems do provide complete fixed-width Unicode fonts, e.g. for xterm. Windows has the Courier New font, which includes characters like ♥☺). Also, the common practice of rendering Unicode with a mixture of variable width fonts is likely to make predictable display hard, if more than a tiny subset of Unicode is used. is an adequate representation of a cat's face in a font with varying character widths.
|
Control and combining characters.
The combining characters mechanism of Unicode provides considerable ways of customizing the style, even obfuscating the text (e.g. via an online generator like Obfuscator, which focuses on the filters). 'Glitcher' is one example of Unicode art, initiated in 2012: "These symbols, intruding up and down, are made by combining lots of diacritical marks. It’s a kind of art. There’s quite a lot of artists who use the Internet or specific social networks as their canvas." The corresponding creations are favored in web browsers (thanks to their always better support), as geekily stylized usernames for social networks. With a fair compatibility, and among different online tools, Facebook symbols showcases various types of Unicode art, mainly for aesthetic purpose (Ɯıḳĭƥḙȡḯả Wîkipêȡıẚ Ẉǐḳîṗȅḍȉā Ẃįḵįṗẻḑìẵ Ẉĭḵɪṕḗdïą Ẇïƙỉpểɗĭà Ẅȉḱïṕȩđĩẵ etc.). Besides, the creations can be hand-crafted (by programming), or pasted from mobile applications (e.g. the category of 'fancy text' tools on Android). The underlying technique dates back to the old systems that incorporated control characters, though. E.g. the German composite codice_2 would be imitated on ZX Spectrum by overwriting codice_3 after backspace and codice_4.
|
Overprinting (surprint).
In the 1970s and early 1980s it was popular to produce a kind of text art that relied on overprinting. This could be produced either on a screen or on a printer by typing a character, backing up, and then typing another character, just as on a typewriter. This developed into sophisticated graphics in some cases, such as the PLATO system (circa 1973), where superscript and subscript allowed a wide variety of graphic effects. A common use was for emoticons, with WOBTAX and VICTORY both producing convincing smiley faces. Overprinting had previously been used on typewriters, but the low-resolution pixelation of characters on video terminals meant that overprinting here produced seamless pixel graphics, rather than visibly overstruck combinations of letters on paper.
Beyond pixel graphics, this was also used for printing photographs, as the overall darkness of a particular character space dependent on how many characters, as well as the choice of character, were printed in a particular place. Thanks to the increased granularity of tone, photographs were often converted to this type of printout. Even manual typewriters or daisy wheel printers could be used. The technique has fallen from popularity since all cheap printers can easily print photographs, and a normal text file (or an e-mail message or Usenet posting) cannot represent overprinted text. However, something similar has emerged to replace it: shaded or colored ASCII art, using ANSI video terminal markup or color codes (such as those found in HTML, IRC, and many internet message boards) to add a bit more tone variation. In this way, it is possible to create ASCII art where the characters only differ in color.
|
Alexius
Alexius is the Latinized form of the given name Alexios (, polytonic , "defender", cf. Alexander), especially common in the Byzantine Empire. The female form is Alexia () and its variants such as Alessia (the masculine form of which is Alessio) in Italian.
The name belongs to the most ancient attested Greek names (a-re-ke-se-u in the Linear B tablets KN Df 1229 and MY Fu 718).
|
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and, since 2025, the official language of the United States. It is also an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states and the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all territories except Puerto Rico. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.
Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other forms of English around the world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent. The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.
|
History.
The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive dialect leveling and mixing in which English varieties across the Thirteen Colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in the British Isles. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa.
Firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased.
Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages.
|
Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in the influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers.
Phonology.
General American.
Most American English accents fall under an umbrella known as General American. Rather than one particular accent, General American is a spectrum of those American accents that Americans themselves do not associate with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. General American features are used most by Americans in formal contexts or who are highly educated. Regional accents whose native features are perceived as General American include the accents of the North Midland (parts of the Midwest), Western New England, and the West.
|
The General American sound system's scope of influence and degree of expansion has been debated by linguists since the term was first used roughly a century ago. Many late-20th and early-21st century studies are showing that it is gradually ousting the regional accents in urban areas of the South and the interior North, New York City, Philadelphia, and many other areas. It can generally be said that younger Americans are avoiding their traditional local features in favor of this more nationwide norm. Furthermore, even General American itself appears to be evolving, with linguists identifying new features in speakers born since the last quarter of the 20th century, like a merger of the low-back vowels and a potentially related vowel shift, that are spreading across the nation.
Phonological features.
|
Studies on historical usage of English in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 20th- and 21st-century British English has since lost: namely, rhoticity. Unlike American accents, the traditional standard accent of (southern) England has evolved a "trap–bath" split. Moreover, American accents preserve at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping, particularly in informal contexts.
Vocabulary.
The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking colonists in North America began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are "opossum, raccoon, squash", "moose" (from Algonquian), "wigwam", and "moccasin". American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, "en masse", from French; "cookie", from Dutch; "kindergarten" from German, and "rodeo" from Spanish. Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and the word "corn", used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S.
|
Other common differences between UK and American English include: "aerial" (UK) vs. "antenna", "biscuit" (UK) vs. "cookie/cracker", "car park" (UK) vs. "parking lot", "caravan" (UK) vs. "trailer", "city centre" (UK) vs. "downtown", "flat" (UK) vs. "apartment", "fringe" (UK; for hair hanging over the forehead) vs. "bangs", and "holiday" (UK) vs. "vacation".
Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West, like "ranch" (now a common house style). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants.
|
burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. Already existing English words—such as "store, shop, lumber"—underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in the U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ("merger, downsize, bottom line"), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball. The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ("elevator" [except in the aeronautical sense], "gasoline") as did certain automotive terms ("truck", "trunk").
|
New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish "(chutzpah, schmooze, bupkis, glitch") and German ("hamburger, wiener"). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from "OK" and "cool" to "nerd" and "24/7)," while others have not "(have a nice day, for sure);" many are now distinctly old-fashioned "(swell, groovy)." Some English words now in general use, such as "hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze" and "jazz," originated as American slang.
American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs. Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are "interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation, major," and many others. Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instance "foothill, landslide" (in all senses), ", teenager," "brainstorm, , hitchhike, smalltime," and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic "(human resources, affirmative action, correctional facility)." Many compound nouns have the verb-and-preposition combination: "stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout, holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover," and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ("win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to" and many others).
|
Noun endings such as "-ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster)" and "-cian (beautician)" are also particularly productive in the U.S. Several verbs ending in "-ize" are of U.S. origin; for example, "fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize," etc.; and so are some back-formations "(locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster" and "enthuse)." Among syntactic constructions that arose are "outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of," etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably "pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae, skeeter, sashay" and "kitty-corner." Adjectives that arose in the U.S. are, for example, "lengthy, bossy, cute" and "cutesy, punk" (in all senses), "sticky" (of the weather), "through" (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as "peppy" or "wacky".
|
Linguist Bert Vaux created a survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term "sub" for a long sandwich, "soda" (but "pop" in the Great Lakes region and generic "coke" in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink, "you" or "you guys" for the plural of "you" (but "y'all" in the South), "sneakers" for athletic shoes (but often "tennis shoes" outside the Northeast), and "shopping cart" for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods.
Grammar and orthography.
American English and British English (BrE) differ in somewhat minor ways in their grammar and writing conventions. The first large American dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language", known as Webster's Dictionary, was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings.
|
Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as "flavor" for British "flavour", "fiber" for "fibre", "defense" for "defence", "analyze" for "analyse", "license" for "licence", "catalog" for "catalogue" and "traveling" for "travelling". Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to the francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred "programme" for "program", "manoeuvre" for "maneuver", "cheque" for "check", etc.). AmE almost always uses "-ize" in words like "realize". BrE prefers "-ise", but also uses "-ize" on occasion (see: Oxford spelling).
There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences, called "comma splices" in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors the double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here').
|
AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE "transportation" and BrE "transport" or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE "burglarize" and BrE "burgle" (from "burglar"). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.
Sub-varieties.
While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents, alongside mostly minor distinctions in vocabulary, grammatical structures, and other features.
Regional accents.
The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in a complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling, while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since the mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like those of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame.
|
Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England, the Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent), and the South. As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area, Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the vowel in the mouth toward and tensing of the vowel wholesale to . These sound changes have triggered a series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the "Inland North". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents) a backer tongue positioning of the vowel (to ) and the vowel (to ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker is the variable fronting of before , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth "Park the car in Harvard Yard".
|
Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston, Pittsburgh, Upper Midwestern, and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the vowel with the vowel ( and , respectively): a "cot–caught" merger, which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older "cot–caught" distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the vowel is particularly marked, as depicted in humorous spellings, like in "tawk" and "cawfee" ("talk" and "coffee"), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal: . A split of into two separate phonemes, using different "a" pronunciations for example in "gap" versus "gas" , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents.
Most Americans preserve all historical sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent. The only traditional "r"-dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England, New York City, and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across the country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its "r" pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's "r"-dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from the late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like "car" sound like "cah" or "source" like "sauce".
|
New York City and Southern accents are the most widely recognized regional accents in the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas, is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the vowel losing its gliding quality: , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a "Southern drawl" that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels. The fronting of the vowels of , , , and tends to also define Southern accents as well as the accents spoken in the "Midland": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum.
Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds:
Other varieties.
|
Nationwide usage and status.
In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people.
Of the 50 states, 32 have adopted legislation granting official (or co-official) status to English within their jurisdictions, in some cases as part of what has been called the English-only movement. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.)
While English has always been the language used at the federal and state levels, no official language had been designated at the federal level before 2025, when English was made the official language of the United States by Executive Order 14224.
Puerto Rico is the only United States territory in which another language – Spanish – is the common language at home, in public, and in government.
|
Albert Spalding
Albert Goodwill Spalding (September 2, 1849 – September 9, 1915) was an American pitcher, manager, and executive in the early years of professional baseball, and the co-founder of the Spalding sporting goods company. He was born and raised in Byron, Illinois, yet graduated from Rockford Central High School in Rockford, Illinois. He played major league baseball between 1871 and 1878. Spalding set a trend when he started wearing a baseball glove.
After his retirement as a player, Spalding remained active with the Chicago White Stockings as president and part-owner. In the 1880s, he took players on the first world tour of baseball. With William Hulbert, Spalding organized the National League. He later called for the commission that investigated the origins of baseball and falsely credited Abner Doubleday with creating the game.
He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
Baseball career.
Player.
Having played baseball throughout his youth, Spalding first played competitively with the Rockford Pioneers, a youth team, which he joined in 1865. After pitching his team to a 26–2 victory over a local men's amateur team (the Mercantiles), he was approached at the age of 15 by the Rockford Forest Citys, for whom he played for five years. Following the formation of baseball's first professional organization, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (which became known as the National Association, the Association, or NA) in 1871, Spalding joined the Boston Red Stockings (precursor club to the modern Atlanta Braves) and was highly successful; winning 206 games (and losing only 53) as a pitcher and batting .323 as a hitter.
|
William Hulbert, principal owner of the Chicago White Stockings, did not like the loose organization of the National Association and the gambling element that influenced it, so he decided to create a new organization, which he dubbed the National League of Baseball Clubs. To aid him in this venture, Hulbert enlisted the help of Spalding. Playing to the pitcher's desire to return to his Midwestern roots and challenging Spalding's integrity, Hulbert convinced Spalding to sign a contract to play for the White Stockings (now known as the Chicago Cubs) in 1876. Spalding then coaxed teammates Deacon White, Ross Barnes and Cal McVey, as well as Philadelphia Athletics players Cap Anson and Bob Addy, to sign with Chicago. This was all done under complete secrecy during the playing season because players were all free agents in those days and they did not want their current club and especially the fans to know they were leaving to play elsewhere the next year. News of the signings by the Boston and Philadelphia players leaked to the press before the season ended and all of them faced verbal abuse and physical threats from the fans of those cities.
|
He was "the premier pitcher of the 1870s", leading the league in victories for each of his six full seasons as a professional. During each of those years he was his team's only pitcher. In 1876, Spalding won 47 games as the prime pitcher for the White Stockings and led them to win the first-ever National League pennant by a wide margin.
In 1877, Spalding began to use a glove to protect his catching hand. People had used gloves previously, but they were not popular, and Spalding himself was skeptical of wearing one at first. However, once he began donning gloves, he influenced other players to do so.
Spalding retired from playing baseball in 1878 at the age of 27, although he continued as president and part owner of the White Stockings and a major influence on the National League. Spalding's .796 career winning percentage (from an era when teams played about once or twice a week) is the highest ever by a baseball pitcher, .058 ahead of Negro league star Dave Brown's .738. Spalding was the first pitcher to reach 200 wins.
|
Organizer and executive.
In the months after signing for Chicago, Hulbert and Spalding organized the National League by enlisting the two major teams in the East and the four other top teams in what was then considered to be the West, also known as the jungle. Joining Chicago initially were the leading teams from Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. The owners of these western clubs accompanied Hulbert and Spalding to New York where they secretly met with owners from New York City, Philadelphia, Hartford, and Boston. Each signed the league's constitution, and the National League was officially born. "Spalding was thus involved in the transformation of baseball from a game of gentlemen athletes into a business and a professional sport." Although the National Association held on for a few more seasons, it was no longer recognized as the premier organization for professional baseball. Gradually, it faded out of existence and was replaced by myriad minor leagues and associations around the country.
In 1886, with Spalding as president of the franchise, the Chicago White Stockings (today's Chicago Cubs), began holding spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which subsequently has been called the "birthplace" of spring training baseball. The location and the training concept was the brainchild of Spalding and his player/manager Cap Anson, who saw that the city and the natural springs created positives for their players. They first played in an area called the Hot Springs Baseball Grounds. Many other teams followed the concept and began training in Hot Springs and other locations.
|
In 1905, after Henry Chadwick wrote an article saying that baseball grew from the British sports of cricket and rounders, Spalding called for a commission to find out the real source of baseball. The commission called for citizens who knew anything about the founding of baseball to send in letters. After three years of searching, on December 30, 1907, Spalding received a letter that (erroneously) declared baseball to be the invention of Abner Doubleday. The commission was biased, as Spalding would not appoint anyone to the commission if they believed the sport was somewhat related to rounders or cricket. Just before the commission issued its findings, in a letter to sportswriter Tim Murnane, Spalding noted, "Our good old American game of baseball must have an American Dad." The project, later called the Mills Commission, concluded that "Base Ball had its origins in the United States" and "the first scheme for playing baseball, according to the best evidence available to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839."
|
Receiving the archives of Henry Chadwick in 1908, Spalding combined these records with his own memories (and biases) to write "America's National Game" (published 1911) which, despite its flaws, was probably the first scholarly account of the history of baseball.
In 1912, Spalding wrote "Neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters, our sweethearts, may play Base Ball on the field... they may play Basket Ball, and achieve laurels; they may play Golf, and receive trophies, but Base Ball is too strenuous for womankind, except as she may take part in grandstands, with applause for the brilliant play, with waiving kerchief to the hero of the three-bagger."
Businessman.
In 1876 while Spalding was playing and organizing the league, Spalding and his brother Walter began a sporting goods store in Chicago, which grew rapidly (14 stores by 1901) and expanded into a manufacturer and distributor of all kinds of sporting equipment. The company became "synonymous with sporting goods" and is still a going concern.
Spalding Athletic Library.
|
Spalding, from 1892 to 1941, sold books under the name Spalding Athletic Library on many different sports.
World Tour.
In 1888–1889, Spalding took a group of major league players around the world to promote baseball and Spalding sporting goods. This was the first-ever world baseball tour. Playing across the western U.S., the tour made stops in Hawaii (although no game was played), New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, and England. The tour returned to grand receptions in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The tour included future Hall of Famers Cap Anson and John Montgomery Ward.
The tour was also touted by Spalding as a launching point for baseball to reach the global stage. At a celebratory dinner in Manhattan, he celebrated the tour – perhaps prematurely – for establishing “our national game throughout the world.” Following Spalding's statements, Mark Twain proclaimed that the tour “carried the American name to the outermost parts of the earth, and covered it with glory every time.”
While Spalding and company gushed about their schlep around the world, waxing lyrical about baseball's future as a global sport, in reality, the tour had very little impact on the sport's hold overseas. Sports like soccer, rugby, and cricket had already been established in many other countries due to the presence of European imperialism so baseball had a difficult time gaining popularity in these regions. While baseball did reach a wider global audience, it was due to a larger scale diffusion of the sport rather than the efforts of one magnate, like Spalding envisioned.
|
While the players were on the tour, the National League instituted new rules regarding player pay that led to a revolt of players, led by Ward, who started the Players' League the following season (1890). The league lasted one year, partially due to the anti-competitive tactics of Spalding to limit its success. The tour and formation of the Player's League is depicted in the 2015 movie "Deadball".
1900 Olympics.
In 1900 Spalding was appointed by President McKinley as the USA's Commissioner at that year's Summer Olympic Games.
Other activities.
Spalding had been a prominent member of the Theosophical Society under William Quan Judge. In 1900, Spalding moved to San Diego having recently married his second wife, Elizabeth and became a prominent member and supporter of the Theosophical community Lomaland, which was being developed on Point Loma by Katherine Tingley. He built an estate in the Sunset Cliffs area of Point Loma where he lived with Elizabeth for the rest of his life. The Spaldings raised race horses and collected Chinese fine furniture and art.
|
The Spaldings had an extensive library which included many volumes on Theosophy, art, and literature. In 1907–1909 he was the driving force behind the development of a paved road, known as the "Point Loma boulevard," from downtown San Diego to Point Loma and Ocean Beach; the road also provided good access to Lomaland. It later provided the basis for California State Route 209. He proposed the project, supervised it on behalf of the city, and paid a portion of the cost out of his own pocket. He joined with George Marston and other civic-minded businessmen to purchase the site of the original Presidio of San Diego, which they developed as a historic park and eventually donated to the city of San Diego. He ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 1911 as a Republican, but lost to eventual winner John D. Works by a vote of 92–21 in the California legislature. He helped to organize the 1915 Panama–California Exposition, serving as second vice-president.
Death.
He died of a stroke on September 9, 1915, in San Diego, one week after his 66th birthday. His ashes were scattered at his request.
|
Legacy.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1939, as one of the first inductees from the 19th century at that summer's opening ceremonies. His plaque in the Hall of Fame reads "Albert Goodwill Spalding. Organizational genius of baseball's pioneer days. Star pitcher of Forest City Club in late 1860s, 4-year champion Bostons 1871–75 and manager-pitcher of champion Chicagos in National League's first year. Chicago president for 10 years. Organizer of baseball's first round-the-world tour in 1888."
His nephew, also named Albert Spalding, was a renowned violinist.
|
Africa Alphabet
The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI alphabet) is a set of letters designed as the basis for Latin alphabets for the languages of Africa. It was initially developed in 1928 by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures from a combination of the English alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Development was assisted by native speakers of African languages and led by Diedrich Hermann Westermann, who served as director of the organization from 1926 to 1939. The aim of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, later renamed the International African Institute (IAI), was to enable people to write for practical and scientific purposes in all African languages without the need of diacritics.
The Africa Alphabet influenced the development of orthographies of many African languages, serving "as the basis for the transcription" of about 60 by one count. Discussion of how to harmonize these with other systems led to several largely abortive proposals such as the African Reference Alphabet and the World Orthography.
Overview.
The Africa Alphabet was built from the consonant letters of the English alphabet and the vowel letters, and any additional consonants, of the IPA. Capital forms of IPA letters were invented as necessary. Thus J and Y are pronounced and as in English, while Ɔ, Ɛ and Ŋ are pronounced , and as in the IPA.
|
Acquire
Acquire is a board game published by 3M in 1964 that involves multi-player mergers and acquisitions. It was one of the most popular games in the 3M Bookshelf games series published in the 1960s, and the only one still published in the United States.
Description.
"Acquire" is a board game for 2–6 players in which players attempt to earn the most money by developing and merging hotel chains. When a chain in which a player owns stock is acquired by a larger chain, players earn money based on the size of the acquired chain. At the end of the game, all players liquidate their stock in order to determine which player has the most money. It is played with play money, stock certificates, and tiles representing hotels that are arranged on the board. The components of the game have varied over the years. In particular, the tiles have been made from wood, plastic, and cardboard in various editions of the game.
Set up.
Before play begins, the players must decide whether the numbers of players' shares will be public or private information. Keeping this information private can greatly extend the game since players will be less certain of their status, and therefore less willing to end the game.
|
Each player receives play cash and a small random set of playing tiles and becomes the founder of a nascent hotel chain by drawing and placing a tile representing a hotel on the board. Tiles are ordered, and correspond to spaces on the board. Position of the starting tiles determines order of play.
Gameplay.
Play consists of placing a tile on the board and optionally buying stock. The placed tile may found a new hotel chain, grow an existing one or merge two or more chains. Chains are sets of edge-wise adjacent tiles. Founders receive a share of stock in new chains. A chain can become "safe", immune to acquisition, by attaining a specified size. Following placement of a tile, the player may then buy a limited number of shares of stock in existing chains. Shares have a market value determined by the size and stature of the hotel chain. At the end of his or her turn, the player receives a new tile to replace the one played.
When mergers occur, the smaller chain becomes defunct, and its tiles are then part of the acquiring chain. The two largest shareholders in the acquired chain receive cash bonuses; players may sell their shares in the defunct chain, trade them in for shares of the acquiring chain, or keep them. Mergers between 3 or more chains are handled in order from larger to smaller.
|
Ending the game.
A player during their turn may declare the game at an end if the largest chain exceeds a specified size (about 40% of the board), or all chains on the board are too large to be acquired. When the game ends, shareholder bonuses
are paid to the two largest shareholders of each chain, and players cash out their shares at market price (shares in any defunct chains are worthless). The player with the most money wins.
Publication history.
When Sid Sackson was a child, he played a Milton Bradley gambling-themed board game titled "Lotto". When he became a game designer, Sackson reworked the game into a wargame he called "Lotto War". In 1962, Sackson and Alex Randolph were commissioned by 3M to start a new games division. When Sackson submitted "Lotto War" to 3M the following year, he retitled the game "Vacation". 3M suggested changing the name to "Acquire", and Sackson agreed. The game was test marketed in several U.S. cities in 1963, and production began in 1964 as a part of the 3M Bookshelf games series.
|
In 1976, the 3M game division was sold to Avalon Hill and "Acquire" became part of their bookcase game series. Four years later, Avalon Hill published the computer game "Computer Acquire" for the PET, Apple II, and TRS-80.
In 1998, Avalon Hill became part of Hasbro. The new owners reissued a slightly revised version of "Acquire" in 2000, in which the hotel chains were replaced by fictitious corporations, though the actual gameplay was unchanged. Hasbro soon thereafter discontinued it. In the mid-2000s, the game was transferred to a Hasbro subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast (WotC). In 2008, WotC celebrated "50 years of Avalon Hill Games" with the release of a new edition of "Acquire", although the game was not yet 50 years old. In 2016, the game was transferred back to the Hasbro games division and republished in 2016 under the Avalon label, with hotels chains reinstated.
Reception.
In "The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games", game designer Jon Freeman compared "Cartel" ("A Gamut of Games") and "Acquire", noting that both were "better games which focus on the joining of companies into conglomerates." Freeman thought "Acquire" had an edge over "Cartel" "in the quality of its components [...] "Acquire"s higher price is unquestionably reflected in its packaging and presentation [and deserves] a place in your game library."
|
"Games Magazine" included "Acquire" in their "Top 100 Games" in four consecutive years:
In the December 1993 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 200), Allen Varney advised readers to ignore the hotel theme: "Supposedly a game of hotel acquisitions and mergers, this is actually a superb abstract game of strategy and capital." Varney called the game "An early masterpiece from [Sid] Sackson, game historian and one of the great designers of our time."
Awards.
The game was short-listed for the first Spiel des Jahres board game awards in 1979.
"GAMES" magazine inducted "Acquire" into their buyers' guide Hall of Fame. The magazine's stated criteria for the Hall of Fame encompasses "games that have met or exceeded the highest standards of quality and play value and have been continuously in production for at least 10 years; i.e., classics."
"Acquire" was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design's Hall of Fame, along with game designer Sid Sackson, in 2011. It is also one of the Mind Sports Olympiad games.
|
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and "de facto" national language. While Australia has no official language, English is the first language of the majority of the population, and has been entrenched as the "de facto" national language since the onset of British settlement, being the only language spoken in the home for 72% of Australians in 2021. It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts.
Australian English began to diverge from British and Hiberno-English after the First Fleet established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. Australian English arose from a dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland, though its most significant influences were the dialects of South East England. By the 1820s, the native-born colonists' speech was recognisably distinct from speakers in Britain and Ireland.
|
Australian English differs from other varieties in its phonology, pronunciation, lexicon, idiom, grammar and spelling. Australian English is relatively consistent across the continent, although it encompasses numerous regional and sociocultural varieties. "General Australian" describes the "de facto" standard dialect, which is perceived to be free of pronounced regional or sociocultural markers and is often used in the media.
History.
Similar to early American English, Australian English passed through a process of extensive dialect levelling and mixing which produced a relatively homogeneous new variety of English which was easily understood by all.
The earliest Australian English was spoken by the first generation of native-born colonists in the Colony of New South Wales from the end of the 18th century. These native-born children were exposed to a wide range of dialects from across the British Isles. The dialects of South East England, including most notably the traditional Cockney dialect of London, were particularly influential on the development of the new variety and constituted "the major input of the various sounds that went into constructing" Australian English. All the other regions of England were represented among the early colonists. A large proportion of early convicts and colonists were from Ireland (comprising the 25% of the total convict population), and many of them spoke Irish as a sole or first language. They were joined by other non-native speakers of English from the Scottish Highlands and Wales. Peter Miller Cunningham's 1827 book "Two Years in New South Wales" described the distinctive accent and vocabulary that had developed among the native-born colonists.
|
The first of the Australian gold rushes in the 1850s began a large wave of immigration, during which about two percent of the population of the United Kingdom emigrated to the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. The Gold Rushes brought immigrants and linguistic influences from many parts of the world. An example was the introduction of vocabulary from American English, including some terms later considered to be typically Australian, such as "bushwhacker" and "squatter". This American influence was continued with the popularity of American films from the early 20th century and the influx of American military personnel that settled in Australia and New Zealand during World War II; seen in the enduring persistence of such universally-accepted terms as "okay" and "guys".
The publication of Edward Ellis Morris's "Austral English: A Dictionary Of Australasian Words, Phrases And Usages" in 1898, which extensively catalogued Australian English vocabulary, started a wave of academic interest and codification during the 20th century which resulted in Australian English becoming established as an endonormative variety with its own internal norms and standards. This culminated in publications such as the 1981 first edition of the "Macquarie Dictionary", a major English language dictionary based on Australian usage, and the 1988 first edition of "The Australian National Dictionary", a historical dictionary documenting the history of Australian English vocabulary and idiom.
|
Phonology and pronunciation.
The most obvious way in which Australian English is distinctive from other varieties of English is through its unique pronunciation. It shares most similarity with New Zealand English. Like most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by the phonetic quality of its vowels.
Vowels.
The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels.
There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is also present in some regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in the US. An example of this feature is the distinction between "ferry" and "fairy" .
As with New Zealand English and General American English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in Australian English: unstressed is merged into (schwa), unless it is followed by a velar consonant. Examples of this feature are the following pairings, which are pronounced identically in Australian English: "Rosa's" and "roses", as well as "Lennon" and "Lenin". Other examples are the following pairs, which rhyme in Australian English: "abbott" with "rabbit", and "dig it" with "bigot".
|
Most varieties of Australian English exhibit only a partial trap-bath split. The words "bath", "grass" and "can't" are always pronounced with the "long" of "father". Throughout the majority of the country, the "flat" of "man" is the dominant pronunciation for the "a" vowel in the following words: "dance", "advance", "plant", "example" and "answer". The exception is the state of South Australia, where a more advanced trap-bath split is found, and where the dominant pronunciation of all the preceding words incorporates the "long" of "father".
Consonants.
There is little variation in the sets of consonants used in different English dialects but there are variations in how these consonants are used. Australian English is no exception.
Australian English is uniformly non-rhotic; that is, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. As with many non-rhotic dialects, linking can occur when a word that has a final in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. An intrusive may similarly be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have in the spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel and after word final . This can be heard in "law-r-and order", where an intrusive R is voiced between the AW and the A.
|
As with North American English, intervocalic alveolar flapping is a feature of Australian English: prevocalic and surface as the alveolar tap after sonorants other than as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel in the same breath group. Examples of this feature are that the following pairs are pronounced similarly or identically: "latter" and "ladder", as well as "rated" and "raided".
"Yod"-dropping generally occurs after , , , but not after , and . Accordingly, "suit" is pronounced as , "lute" as , "Zeus" as and "enthusiasm" as . Other cases of and , as well as and , have coalesced to , , and respectively for many speakers. is generally retained in other consonant clusters.
In common with most varieties of Scottish English and American English, the phoneme is pronounced by Australians as a "dark" (velarised) "l" () in almost all positions, unlike other dialects such as Received Pronunciation, Hiberno (Irish) English, etc.
Pronunciation.
Differences in stress, weak forms and standard pronunciation of isolated words occur between Australian English and other forms of English, which while noticeable do not impair intelligibility.
|
The affixes "-ary", "-ery", "-ory", "-bury", "-berry" and "-mony" (seen in words such as "necessary, mulberry" and "matrimony") can be pronounced either with a full vowel () or a schwa (). Although some words like "necessary" are almost universally pronounced with the full vowel, older generations of Australians are relatively likely to pronounce these affixes with a schwa as is typical in British English. Meanwhile, younger generations are relatively likely to use a full vowel.
Words ending in unstressed "-ile" derived from Latin adjectives ending in "-ilis" are pronounced with a full vowel, so that "fertile" sounds like "fur tile" rather than rhyming with "turtle" .
In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to various isolated words, with some of those pronunciations being unique to Australian English. For example:
Variation.
Relative to many other national dialect groupings, Australian English is relatively homogeneous across the country. Some relatively minor regional differences in pronunciation exist. A limited range of word choices is strongly regional in nature. Consequently, the geographical background of individuals may be inferred if they use words that are peculiar to particular Australian states or territories and, in some cases, even smaller regions. In addition, some Australians speak creole languages derived from Australian English, such as Australian Kriol, Torres Strait Creole and Norfuk.
|
Academic research has also identified notable sociocultural variation within Australian English, which is mostly evident in phonology.
Regional variation.
Although Australian English is relatively homogeneous, there are some regional variations. The dialects of English spoken in the various states and territories of Australia differ slightly in vocabulary and phonology.
Most regional differences are in word usage. Swimming clothes are known as "cossies", "togs" or "swimmers" in New South Wales, "togs" in Queensland, and "bathers" in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. What Queensland calls a "stroller" is usually called a "pram" in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania.
Preference for some synonymous words also differ between states. "Garbage" (i.e., garbage bin, garbage truck) dominates over "rubbish" in New South Wales and Queensland, while "rubbish" is more popular in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia.
|
The most pronounced variation in phonology is between South Australia and the other states and territories. The trap–bath split is more complete in South Australia, in contrast to the other states. Accordingly, words such as "dance", "advance", "plant", "example" and "answer" are pronounced with (as in "father") far more frequently in South Australia while the older (as in "mad") is dominant elsewhere in Australia. "L"-vocalisation is also more common in South Australia than other states.
In Western Australian and Queensland English, the vowels in "near" and "square" are typically realised as centring diphthongs (), whereas in the other states they may also be realised as monophthongs: .
A feature common in Victorian English is salary–celery merger, whereby a Victorian pronunciation of "Ellen" may sound like "Alan" and Victoria's capital city "Melbourne" may sound like "Malbourne" to speakers from other states. There is also regional variation in before (as in "school" and "pool").
In some parts of Australia, notably Victoria, a fully backed allophone of , transcribed , is common before . As a result, the pairs full/fool and pull/pool differ phonetically only in vowel length for those speakers. The usual allophone for is further forward in Queensland and New South Wales than Victoria.
|
A "final particle but", where "but" is the concluding word in a sentence, has also evolved as a distinctive feature in Australian English, particularly in Western Australia and Queensland. In conversational Australian English it is thought to be a turn-yielding particle that marks contrastive content in the utterance it closes. It is a linguistic trait sometimes employed in Australian literature to indicate that the character is quintessentially Australian.
Sociocultural variation.
The General Australian accent serves as the standard variety of English across the country. According to linguists, it emerged during the 19th century. General Australian is the dominant variety across the continent, and is particularly so in urban areas. The increasing dominance of General Australian reflects its prominence on radio and television since the latter half of the 20th century.
Recent generations have seen a comparatively smaller proportion of the population speaking with the "Broad" sociocultural variant, which differs from General Australian in its phonology. The Broad variant is found across the continent and is relatively more prominent in rural and outer-suburban areas.
|
A largely historical "Cultivated" sociocultural variant, which adopted features of British Received Pronunciation and which was commonplace in official media during the early 20th century, had become largely extinct by the onset of the 21st century.
Australian Aboriginal English is made up of a range of forms which developed differently in different parts of Australia, and are said to vary along a continuum, from forms close to Standard Australian English to more non-standard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use.
Academics have noted the emergence of numerous ethnocultural dialects of Australian English that are spoken by people from some minority non-English speaking backgrounds. These ethnocultural varieties contain features of General Australian English as adopted by the children of immigrants blended with some non-English language features, such as Afro-Asiatic languages and languages of Asia. Samoan English is also influencing Australian English. Other ethnolects include those of Lebanese and Vietnamese Australians.
|
A high rising terminal in Australian English was noted and studied earlier than in other varieties of English. The feature is sometimes called "Australian questioning intonation". Research published in 1986, regarding vernacular speech in Sydney, suggested that high rising terminal was initially spread by young people in the 1960s. It found that the high rising terminal was used more than twice as often by young people than older people, and is more common among women than men. In the United Kingdom, it has occasionally been considered one of the variety's stereotypical features, and its spread there is attributed to the popularity of Australian soap operas.
Vocabulary.
Intrinsic traits.
Australian English has many words and idioms which are unique to the dialect.
Commonly known.
Internationally well-known examples of Australian terminology include "outback", meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, "the bush", meaning either a native forest or a country area in general, and "g'day", a greeting. "Dinkum", or "fair dinkum" means "true", "legitimate" or "is that true?", among other things, depending on context and inflection. The derivative "dinky-di" means "true" or devoted: a "dinky-di Aussie" is a "true Australian".
|
Historical references.
Australian poetry, such as "The Man from Snowy River", as well as folk songs such as "Waltzing Matilda", contain many historical Australian words and phrases that are understood by Australians even though some are not in common usage today.
British English similarities and differences.
Australian English, in common with British English, uses the word "mate" to mean "friend", as well as the word "bloody" as a mild expletive or intensifier. "Mate" is also used in multiple ways including to indicate "mateship" or formally call out the target of a threat or insult, depending on internation and context.
Several words used by Australians were at one time used in the UK but have since fallen out of usage or changed in meaning there. For example, "creek" in Australia, as in North America, means a stream or small river, whereas in the UK it is typically a watercourse in a marshy area; "paddock" in Australia means field, whereas in the UK it means a small enclosure for livestock; "bush" or "scrub" in Australia, as in North America, means a natural, uncultivated area of vegetation or flora, whereas in England they are commonly used only in proper names (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs).
|
Aboriginal-derived words.
Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been adopted by Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo) and local culture. Many such are localised, and do not form part of general Australian use, while others, such as "kangaroo", "boomerang", "budgerigar", "wallaby" and so on have become international. Other examples are "cooee" and "hard yakka". The former is used as a high-pitched call, for attracting attention, (pronounced ) which travels long distances. "Cooee" is also a notional distance: "if he's within "cooee", we'll spot him". "Hard yakka" means "hard work" and is derived from "yakka", from the Jagera/Yagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region.
The word "bung", meaning "dead" was originally a Yagara word which was used in the pidgin widely spoken across Australia.
Places.
Many towns or suburbs of Australia have also been influenced or named after Aboriginal words. The best-known example is the capital, Canberra, named after a local Ngunnawal language word thought to mean "women's breasts" or "meeting place".
|
Figures of speech and abbreviations.
Litotes, such as "not bad", "not much" and "you're not wrong", are also used.
Diminutives and hypocorisms are common and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some common examples are "arvo" (afternoon), "barbie" (barbecue), "smoko" (cigarette break), "Aussie" (Australian) and "Straya" (Australia). This may also be done with people's names to create nicknames (other English speaking countries create similar diminutives). For example, "Gazza" from Gary, or "Smitty" from John Smith. The use of the suffix "-o" originates in , which is both a postclitic and a suffix with much the same meaning as in Australian English.
In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such as "sweet as" (as in "That car is sweet as."). "Full", "fully" or "heaps" may precede a word to act as an intensifier (as in "The waves at the beach were heaps good."). This was more common in regional Australia and South Australia but has been in common usage in urban Australia for decades. The suffix "-ly" is sometimes omitted in broader Australian English. For instance, "really good" can become "real good".
|
Measures.
Australia's switch to the metric system in the 1970s changed most of the country's vocabulary of measurement from imperial to metric measures. Since the switch to metric, heights of individuals are listed in centimetres on official documents and distances by road on signs are listed in terms of kilometres and metres.
Comparison with other varieties.
Where British and American English vocabulary differs, sometimes Australian English shares a usage with one of those varieties, as with "petrol" (AmE: "gasoline") and "mobile phone" (AmE: "cellular phone") which are shared with British English, or "truck" (BrE: "lorry") and "eggplant" (BrE: "aubergine") which are shared with American English.
In other circumstances, Australian English sometimes favours a usage which is different from both British and American English as with:
Differences exist between Australian English and other varieties of English, where different terms can be used for the same subject or the same term can be ascribed different meanings. Non-exhaustive examples of terminology associated with food, transport and clothing is used below to demonstrate the variations which exist between Australian English and other varieties:
|
Food – capsicum (BrE: "(red/green) pepper"; AmE: "bell pepper"); (potato) chips (refers both to BrE "crisps" and AmE "French fries"); chook (sanga) (BrE and AmE: "chicken (sandwich)"); coriander (shared with BrE. AmE: "cilantro"); entree (refers to AmE "appetizer" whereas AmE "entree" is referred to in AusE as "main course"); eggplant (shared with AmE. BrE: "aubergine"); fairy floss (BrE: "candy floss"; AmE: "cotton candy"); ice block or icy pole (BrE: "ice lolly"; AmE: "popsicle"); jelly (refers to AmE "Jell-o" whereas AmE "jelly" refers to AusE "jam"); lollies (BrE: "sweets"; AmE: "candy"); marinara (sauce) (refers to a tomato-based sauce in AmE and BrE but a seafood sauce in AusE); mince or minced meat (shared with BrE. AmE: "ground meat"); prawn (which in BrE refers to large crustaceans only, with small crustaceans referred to as "shrimp". AmE universally: "shrimp"); snow pea (shared with AmE. BrE "mangetout"); pumpkin (AmE: "squash", except for the large orange variety – AusE "squash" refers only to a small number of uncommon species; BrE: "marrow"); tomato sauce (also used in BrE. AmE: "ketchup"); zucchini (shared with AmE. BrE: "courgette")
|
Transport – aeroplane (shared with BrE. AmE: "airplane"); bonnet (shared with BrE. AmE: "hood"); bumper (shared with BrE. AmE: "fender"); car park (shared with BrE. AmE: "parking lot"); convertible (shared with AmE. BrE: "cabriolet"); footpath (BrE: "pavement"; AmE: "sidewalk"); horse float (BrE: "horsebox"; AmE: "horse trailer"); indicator (shared with BrE. AmE: "turn signal"); peak hour (BrE and AmE: "rush hour"); petrol (shared with BrE. AmE: "gasoline"); railway (shared with BrE. AmE: "railroad"); sedan (car) (shared with AmE. BrE: "saloon (car)"); semitrailer (shared with AmE. BrE: "artic" or "articulated lorry"); station wagon (shared with AmE. BrE: "estate car"); truck (shared with AmE. BrE: "lorry"); ute (BrE and AmE: "pickup truck"); windscreen (shared with BrE. AmE: "windshield")
Clothing – gumboots (BrE: "Wellington boots" or "Wellies"; AmE: "rubber boots" or "galoshes"); jumper (shared with BrE. AmE: "sweater"); nappy (shared with BrE. AmE: "diaper"); overalls (shared with AmE. BrE: "dungarees"); raincoat (shared with AmE. BrE: "mackintosh" or "mac"); runners or sneakers (footwear) (BrE: "trainers". AmE: "sneakers"); sandshoe (BrE: "pump" or "plimsoll". AmE: "tennis shoe"); singlet (BrE: "vest". AmE: "tank top" or "wifebeater"); skivvy (BrE: "polo neck"; AmE: "turtleneck"); swimmers or togs or bathers (BrE: "swimming costume". AmE: "bathing suit" or "swimsuit"); thongs (refers to BrE and AmE "flip-flops (footwear)". In BrE and AmE refers to "g-string (underwear)")
|
Terms with different meanings in Australian English.
There also exist words which in Australian English are ascribed different meanings from those ascribed in other varieties of English, for instance:
Idioms taking different forms in Australian English.
In addition to the large number of uniquely Australian idioms in common use, there are instances of idioms taking different forms in Australian English than in other varieties, for instance:
British and American English terms not commonly used in Australian English.
There are extensive terms used in other varieties of English which are not widely used in Australian English. These terms usually do not result in Australian English speakers failing to comprehend speakers of other varieties of English, as Australian English speakers will often be familiar with such terms through exposure to media or may ascertain the meaning using context.
Non-exhaustive selections of British English and American English terms not commonly used in Australian English together with their definitions or Australian English equivalents are found in the collapsible table below:
|
British English terms not widely used in Australian English
American English terms not widely used in Australian English
Grammar.
The general rules which apply to Australian English are described at English grammar. Grammatical differences between varieties of English are minor relative to differences in phonology and vocabulary and do not generally affect intelligibility. Examples of grammatical differences between Australian English and other varieties include:
Spelling and style.
As in all English-speaking countries, there is no central authority that prescribes official usage with respect to matters of spelling, grammar, punctuation or style.
Spelling.
There are several dictionaries of Australian English which adopt a descriptive approach. The "Macquarie Dictionary" and the "Australian Oxford Dictionary" are most commonly used by universities, governments and courts as the standard for Australian English spelling.
Australian spelling is significantly closer to British than American spelling, as it did not adopt the systematic reforms promulgated in Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Notwithstanding, the Macquarie Dictionary often lists most American spellings as acceptable secondary variants.
|
The minor systematic differences which occur between Australian and American spelling are summarised below:
Minor systematic difference which occur between Australian and British spelling are as follows:
Other examples of individual words where the preferred spelling is listed by the "Macquarie Dictionary" as being different from current British spellings include "analog as opposed to "analogue, "guerilla" as opposed to "guerrilla", "verandah as opposed to "veranda, "burqa" as opposed to "burka", "pastie (noun) as opposed to "pasty, "neuron as opposed to "neurone, "hicup as opposed to "hicough, "annex as opposed to "annexe, "raccoon" as opposed to "racoon" etc. Unspaced forms such as "onto", "anytime", "alright" and "anymore" are also listed as being equally as acceptable as their spaced counterparts.
There is variation between and within varieties of English in the treatment of -t and -ed endings for past tense verbs. The Macquarie Dictionary does not favour either, but it suggests that "leaped, "leaned or "learned (with -ed endings) are more common but "spelt and "burnt" (with -t endings) are more common.
|
Different spellings have existed throughout Australia's history. What are today regarded as American spellings were popular in Australia throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the Victorian Department of Education endorsing them into the 1970s and "The Age" newspaper until the 1990s. This influence can be seen in the spelling of the Australian Labor Party and also in some place names such as Victor Harbor. The "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" has been credited with re-establishing the dominance of the British spellings in the 1920s and 1930s. For a short time during the late 20th century, Harry Lindgren's 1969 spelling reform proposal ("Spelling Reform 1" or "SR1") gained some support in Australia and was adopted by the Australian Teachers' Federation and minister Doug Everingham in personal correspondence.
Punctuation and style.
Prominent general style guides for Australian English include the "Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage", the "Australian Government Style Manual" (formerly the ""), the "Australian Handbook for Writers and Editors" and the "Complete Guide to English Usage for Australian Students".
|
Both single and double quotation marks are in use, with single quotation marks preferred for use in the first instance, with double quotation marks reserved for quotes of speech within speech. Logical (as opposed to typesetter's) punctuation is preferred for punctuation marks at the end of quotations. For instance, "Sam said he 'wasn't happy when Jane told David to "go away." is used in preference to "Sam said he "wasn't happy when Jane told David to 'go away."
The DD/MM/YYYY date format is followed and the 12-hour clock is generally used in everyday life (as opposed to service, police, and airline applications).
With the exception of screen sizes, metric units are used in everyday life, having supplanted imperial units upon the country's switch to the metric system in the 1970s, although imperial units persist in casual references to a person's height. Tyre and bolt sizes (for example) are defined in imperial units where appropriate for technical reasons.
In betting, decimal odds are used in preference to fractional odds, as used in the United Kingdom, or moneyline odds in the United States.
Keyboard layout.
There are two major English language keyboard layouts, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout. Keyboards and keyboard software for the Australian market universally uses the US keyboard layout, which lacks the pound (£), euro and negation symbols and uses a different layout for punctuation symbols from the UK keyboard layout.
|
American Airlines Flight 77
American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. The Boeing 757-200 aircraft serving the flight was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked airliner was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, killing all 64 aboard and another 125 in the building.
Flight 77 became airborne at 08:20 ET. Thirty-one minutes after takeoff, the attackers stormed the cockpit and forced the passengers and crew to the rear of the cabin, threatening the hostages but initially sparing all of them. Lead hijacker Hani Hanjour assumed control of the aircraft after having undergone extensive flight training as part of his preparation for the attack. In the meantime, two people aboard discreetly made phone calls to family members and relayed information on the situation without the knowledge of their assailants.
|
Hanjour flew the airplane into the west side of the Pentagon at 09:37. Many people witnessed the impact, and news sources began reporting on the incident within minutes, but no clear footage of the crash itself is available to the public. The 757 severely damaged an area of the Pentagon and caused a large fire that took several days to extinguish. By 10:10, the damage inflicted by the aircraft and ignited jet fuel led to a localized collapse of the Pentagon's western flank, followed forty minutes later by another five stories of the structure. Flight 77 was the third of four passenger jets to be commandeered by terrorists that morning, and the last to reach a target intended by al-Qaeda. The hijacking was to be coordinated with that of United Airlines Flight 93, which was flown in the direction of Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital. The terrorists on Flight 93 had their sights set on a federal government building not far from the Pentagon, but were forced to crash the plane in a Pennsylvania field when the passengers fought for control after being alerted to the previous suicide attacks, including Flight 77's.
|
The damaged sections of the Pentagon were rebuilt in 2002, with occupants moving back into the completed areas that August. The 184 victims of the attack are memorialized in the Pentagon Memorial adjacent to the crash site. The park contains a bench for each of the victims, arranged according to their year of birth.
Background.
The flight was commandeered as part of the September 11 attacks. The attacks themselves cost somewhere in the region of $400,000 and $500,000 to execute, but the source of this financial support remains unknown. Led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was described as being the "principal architect" of the attacks in the 9/11 Commission Report, al-Qaeda was motivated by several factors, not least of which was anti-Americanism and anti-Western sentiment. Because al-Qaeda only had the resources to commandeer four passenger jets, there was disagreement between Mohammed and Osama bin Laden over which targets should be prioritized. Mohammed favored striking the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, while bin-Laden was bent on toppling the United States federal government, a goal he believed could be accomplished by destroying the Pentagon, the White House and the United States Capitol. Though bin Laden himself expressed a preference for the destruction of the White House over the Capitol, his subordinates disagreed, citing its difficulty in striking from the air. Hani Hanjour―likely while in the presence of fellow Flight 77 accomplice Nawaf al-Hazmi―scoped out the Washington metropolitan area on July 20, 2001, by renting a plane and taking a practice flight from Fairfield, New Jersey to Gaithersburg, Maryland in order to determine the feasibility of each of the possible candidates.
|
In the end, 19 terrorists participated in the attacks against the United States, consisting of three groups of five men each and one group of four. The nine hijackers on Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93 were assigned the task of striking governmental structures in or near the national capital of Washington, D.C., and as such, the objective was for the two hijackings to be coordinated insofar as both planes being aimed towards targets in the Washington metropolitan area. Significant complications faced by the four terrorists on Flight 93 ensured that Flight 77 was the only one to successfully attack a target intended by al-Qaeda when it struck the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia at 09:37, while a passenger uprising forced the hijackers aboard Flight 93 to crash the plane in rural Pennsylvania.
Regardless, the degree of coordination between Flight 77 and Flight 93 was evidently less than that of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, the two airliners that were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center 17 minutes apart in a joint attack on New York City. Flights 11 and 175 both departed from Logan International Airport in Boston for Los Angeles International Airport, and crashed into targets that stood next to each other, in contrast to the Pentagon and the federal government building Flight 93 was set to crash into, which were simply located in the same general area.
|
One noteworthy difference between the attacks in the National Capital Region and those in New York is that the teams on Flights 77 and 93 did not follow suit with their counterparts on Flights 11 and 175 by booking planes from the same airport with the same California destination in mind. Flight 77's group hijacked a plane out of Dulles International Airport in Virginia, conveniently situated near the Pentagon and consequently the capital, on a flight path destined for LAX. Conversely, Flight 93 departed from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, nearly 200 miles northeast of D.C., bound for San Francisco International Airport. There was also no contact between Hanjour and Flight 93 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah on the day of the attacks, whereas Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi spoke over the phone while preparing to board their respective flights, apparently to confirm the attacks were ready to begin.
Hijackers.
The hijackers on American Airlines Flight77 were five Saudi men between the ages of 20 and 29. They were led by Hanjour, who piloted the aircraft into the Pentagon. Hanjour first arrived in the United States in 1990.
|
Hanjour trained at the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Arizona, earning his FAA commercial pilot's certificate in April 1999. He had wanted to be a commercial pilot for Saudia but was rejected when he applied to the civil aviation school in Jeddah in 1999. Hanjour's brother later explained that, frustrated at not finding a job, Hanjour "increasingly turned his attention toward religious texts and cassette tapes of militant Islamic preachers." Hanjour returned to Saudi Arabia after being certified as a pilot, but left again in late 1999, telling his family he was going to the United Arab Emirates to work for an airline. Hanjour likely went to Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda recruits were screened for special skills they might have. Already having selected the Hamburg cell members, Al Qaeda leaders selected Hanjour to lead the fourth team of hijackers.
In December 2000, Hanjour arrived in San Diego, joining "muscle" hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who had been there since January of that year. Alec Station, the CIA's unit dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden, had discovered that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had multiple-entry visas to the United States. An FBI agent inside the unit and his supervisor Mark Rossini (Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Supervisory Agent) sought to alert FBI headquarters, but the CIA officer supervising Rossini at Alec Station rebuffed him on the grounds that the FBI lacked jurisdiction.
|
Soon after arriving in San Diego, Hanjour and Hazmi left for Mesa, Arizona, where Hanjour began refresher training at Arizona Aviation. In April 2001, they relocated to Falls Church, Virginia, where they awaited the arrival of the remaining "muscle" hijackers. One of these men, Majed Moqed, arrived on May 2, 2001, with Flight175 hijacker Ahmed al-Ghamdi from Dubai at Dulles International Airport. They moved into an apartment with Hazmi and Hanjour.
On May 21, 2001, Hanjour rented a room in Paterson, New Jersey, where he stayed with other hijackers through the end of August. The last Flight77 "muscle" hijacker, Salem al-Hazmi, arrived on June 29, 2001, with Abdulaziz al-Omari (a hijacker of Flight11) at John F. Kennedy International Airport from the United Arab Emirates. They stayed with Hanjour.
Hanjour received ground instruction and did practice flights at Air Fleet Training Systems in Teterboro, New Jersey, and at Caldwell Flight Academy in Fairfield, New Jersey. Hanjour moved out of the room in Paterson and arrived at the Valencia Motel in Laurel, Maryland, on September 2, 2001. While in Maryland, Hanjour and fellow hijackers trained at Gold's Gym in Greenbelt. On September 10, he completed a certification flight, using a terrain recognition system for navigation, at Congressional Air Charters in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
|
On September 10 Nawaf al-Hazmi, accompanied by other hijackers, checked into the Marriott in Herndon, Virginia, near Dulles Airport.
Suspected accomplices.
According to a U.S. State Department cable leaked in the WikiLeaks dump in February 2010, the FBI has investigated another suspect, Mohammed al-Mansoori. He had associated with three Qatari citizens who flew from Los Angeles to London (via Washington) and Qatar on the eve of the attacks, after allegedly surveying the World Trade Center and the White House. U.S. law enforcement officials said the data about the four men was "just one of many leads that were thoroughly investigated at the time and never led to terrorism charges." An official added that the three Qatari citizens had never been questioned by the FBI. Eleanor Hill, the former staff director for the congressional joint inquiry on the September 11 attacks, said the cable reinforces questions about the thoroughness of the FBI's investigation. She also said that the inquiry concluded the hijackers had a support network that helped them in different ways.
|
The three Qatari men were booked to fly from Los Angeles to Washington on September 10, 2001, on the same plane that was hijacked and piloted into the Pentagon on the following day. Instead, they flew from Los Angeles to Qatar, via Washington and London. While the cable said Mansoori was currently under investigation, U.S. law enforcement officials said there was no active investigation of him or of the Qatari citizens mentioned in the cable.
Flight.
The aircraft involved in the hijacking was a Boeing 757-223 registered as On September 11, the total flight duration was 77 minutes. The crew included Captain Charles Burlingame (51) (a Naval Academy graduate and former fighter pilot), First Officer David Charlebois (39), purser Renee May and flight attendants Michele Heidenberger, Jennifer Lewis and Kenneth Lewis. The capacity of the aircraft was 188 passengers, but with 58 passengers on September 11, the load factor was 33 percent.
|
The capacity of the aircraft was 188 passengers, but with 58 passengers on September 11, the load factor was 33 percent. Former Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson had originally booked a ticket on Flight77. As he would tell the story many times in the following years, including a September 12, 2011 interview on Jim Rome's radio show, he had been scheduled to appear on that show on September 12, 2001. Thompson was planning to be in Las Vegas for a friend's birthday on September 13, and initially insisted on traveling to Rome's Los Angeles studio on the 11th. However, this did not work for the show, which wanted him to travel on the day of the show. After a Rome staffer personally assured Thompson he would be able to travel from Los Angeles to Las Vegas immediately after the show, Thompson changed his travel plans. He would later feel the impact from the crash at his home near the Pentagon.
|
Boarding and departure.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, the five hijackers arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport. At 07:15 AM ET, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed checked in at the American Airlines ticket counter for Flight77, arriving at the passenger security checkpoint a few minutes later at 07:18. Both men set off the metal detector and were put through secondary screening. Moqed continued to set off the alarm, so he was searched with a hand wand. The Hazmi brothers checked in together at the ticket counter at 07:29. Hani Hanjour checked in separately and arrived at the passenger security checkpoint at 07:35. Hanjour was followed minutes later at the checkpoint by Salem and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who also set off the metal detector's alarm. The screener at the checkpoint never resolved what set off the alarm. As seen in security footage later released, Nawaf al-Hazmi appeared to have an unidentified item in his back pocket. Utility knives up to four inches were permitted at the time by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as carry-on items. The passenger security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport was operated by Argenbright Security, under contract with United Airlines.
|
The hijackers were all selected for extra screening of their checked bags. Hanjour, al-Mihdhar, and Moqed were chosen by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) criteria, while the brothers Nawaf and Salem al-Hazmi were selected because they did not provide adequate identification and were deemed suspicious by the airline check-in agent. Hanjour, Mihdhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi did not check any bags for the flight. Checked bags belonging to Moqed and Salem al-Hazmi were held until they boarded the aircraft.
During the boarding process a National Geographic employee took a group photograph of the teachers and students going on the Channel Islands trip and the two employees accompanying them, as well as a picture of the airplane, inadvertently capturing the last images of both the victims and N644AA. Visible in the background of the group photograph is a man whose haircut and dress shirt match that of Nawaf al-Hazmi from Dulles security footage, indicating it may also be the last photograph of any of the Flight 77 hijackers while alive, but this has not been definitely confirmed.
|
Flight 77 was scheduled to depart for Los Angeles at 08:10; 58 passengers boarded through Gate D26, including the five hijackers. The 53 other passengers on board excluding the hijackers were 26 men, 22 women, and five children ranging in age from three to eleven. On the flight, Hani Hanjour was seated up front in 1B, while Salem and Nawaf al-Hazmi were likewise seated in first class, in seats 5E and 5F. Majed Moqed and Khalid al-Mihdhar were seated farther back in 12A and 12B, in economy class. Flight77 left the gate on time and took off from Runway 30 at Dulles at 08:20. The attacks were already underway by this point, as American Airlines Flight 11 had been hijacked six minutes earlier. Shortly after Flight 77 became airborne, FAA flight controller Danielle O'Brien made a routine handoff of the flight to a colleague at the FAA's Indianapolis Center. For reasons she could not explain and would never fully understand, O'Brien did not use one of her normal sendoffs to the pilots: "Good day," or "Have a nice flight." Instead, she wished them, "Good luck."
|
Flight 77 reached its assigned cruising altitude of at 8:46 a.m., four minutes after the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 175 commenced and the very same minute Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The final communication between Flight 77 and controllers on the ground occurred four minutes later at 08:50:51, as Hanjour and his team prepared to strike.
Hijacking.
The terrorists launched their assault at 08:51, by which point the North Tower had been on fire for around five minutes and Flight 175 was within 12 minutes of striking the South Tower. Flight 93 had also become airborne from Newark at 08:42, but had been delayed on the runway for as long as 42 minutes and would not be seized until 09:28, preventing al-Qaeda's idea to synchronize its takeover with that of Flight 77. Three minutes after the hijacking began, according to the commission, the attackers on Flight 77 were in full control of the aircraft. The "modus operandi" of Hanjour's group was in stark contrast to the other three teams, in that while the victims were threatened with knives and box cutters, there were no reports of any injuries or deaths prior to the crash; both pilots were spared when the cockpit was breached, and the use of chemical weapons or bomb threats was not reported by either of the two people who made phone calls from the rear of the cabin. At 08:54, as the plane flew in the vicinity over Pike County, Ohio, it began deviating from its normal assigned flight path and turned south. Two minutes later, the plane's transponder was switched off. The flight's autopilot was promptly engaged and set on a course heading eastbound towards Washington, D.C.
|
The FAA was aware at this point there was an emergency on board the airplane. After learning of a second hijacking involving an American Airlines aircraft and the hijacking of a United Airlines jet, American Airlines' executive vice president Gerard Arpey ordered a nationwide ground stop for the airline. For several minutes, Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center and dispatchers for American Airlines made several failed attempts to contact the hijacked airliner, giving up just as Flight 175 flew into the World Trade Center's South Tower at 09:03. The plane had been flying over an area of limited radar coverage at the time of its hijacking. With air controllers unable to contact the flight by radio, an Indianapolis official declared that it had possibly crashed at 09:09, twenty-eight minutes before it actually did. Sometime between 09:17 and 09:22, Hanjour broadcast a deceptive announcement via the cabin's public address system, advising those aboard that the plane was being hijacked and that their best chance of survival was by not resisting. This tactic was used on Flight 11 and on Flight 93 with the aim of deceiving the passengers and crew into believing the plan was to land the plane after securing a ransom; in both cases, however, the terrorists’ understanding of the internal communication systems used aboard aircraft was evidently not as good as Hanjour's, as they keyed the wrong microphone and broadcast their message to the ground instead. No passengers aboard Flight 11 reported hearing any intercom messages.
|
Calls.
Two people on board the aircraft made a total of three phone calls to contacts on the ground. At 09:12, flight attendant Renee May made a phone call lasting just under two minutes to her mother, Nancy May, in Las Vegas. During the phone call, she made the erroneous claim that "six persons" had forced "us" to the rear of the airplane, but did not explain whether the people crowded together were crew members, passengers, or both. May asked her mother to contact American Airlines, which she and her husband promptly did, although the company was well aware of the hijacking by this point.
At 09:16, Barbara Olson made a call to her husband Ted, quietly explaining that the plane had been hijacked and that those responsible were armed with knives and box cutters. She revealed that everyone, including the pilots, had been moved to the back of the cabin and that the call was being made without the knowledge of the hostage takers. The connection dropped a minute into the conversation. Theodore Olson contacted the command center at the Department of Justice, and tried unsuccessfully to contact Attorney General John Ashcroft. Barbara Olson called again five minutes later, informing her husband of the announcement Hanjour―"the pilot"―made over the loudspeaker, and asked him, "What do I tell the pilot to do?" Inquired of her whereabouts, Barbara replied saying that they were flying low over a residential area. In the background, Ted overheard another passenger mentioning that the plane was flying northeast. He then made his wife aware of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center, causing her to go quiet; Ted wondered if this meant she had been shocked into silence. After expressing their feelings and reassuring one another, the call cut off for the last time, at 9:26 a.m.
|
Crash.
At 9:29 a.m., one minute after Flight 93 was hijacked, the terrorists aboard Flight 77 disengaged the autopilot and took manual control of the plane. Turning and descending rapidly as it made its final approach toward Washington, the airplane was detected again on radar screens by controllers at Dulles, who mistook it for a military fighter at first glance due to its high speed and maneuvering.
While Flight77 was west-southwest of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, it made a 330-degree spiral turn clockwise. By the end of the revolution, the 757 was descending , pointed toward the Pentagon and downtown Washington. Advancing the throttles to full power, Hanjour rapidly began diving toward his target. The wings clipped five street lights as the plane flew level above the ground, while the right wing in particular struck a portable generator, creating a smoke trail seconds before smashing into the Pentagon.
Flying at a speed of over the Navy Annex Building adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, Flight77 crashed into the Pentagon's western flank at 09:37:46. The plane struck the establishment at the first-floor level and was rolled slightly to the left, with the right wing elevated as it crashed. The front part of the fuselage immediately disintegrated upon impact, while the mid and tail sections continued moving for another fraction of a second, with tail section debris penetrating farthest into the building. In total, the aircraft took eight-tenths of a second to pass through the three outermost of the structure's five rings and unleashed a fireball that rose above the building. The 64 people aboard the flight were killed instantly, while a further 125 people in the Pentagon were either killed outright or fatally injured.
|
In the minutes leading up to the crash, Reagan Airport controllers had asked a passing Air National Guard Lockheed C-130 Hercules to identify and follow the aircraft. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Steven O'Brien, told them he believed it was either a Boeing757 or 767, observing that its silver fuselage meant it was most likely an American Airlines jet. O'Brien mentioned having difficulty picking out the airplane in the "East Coast haze", but moments later reported seeing a "huge" fireball. His initial assumption as he approached the crash site was that the plane had simply hit the ground, but upon closer inspection he saw the damage done to the Pentagon's west side and relayed to Reagan control, "Looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir."
At the time of the attacks, approximately 18,000 people worked in the Pentagon, 4,000 fewer than before renovations began in 1998. The section of the Pentagon that was struck, which had recently been renovated at a cost of $250million (~$ in ), housed the Naval Command Center.
|
The fatalities in the Pentagon included 55 military personnel and 70 civilians. Of those 125 killed, 92 were on the first floor, 31 were on the second floor, and two were on the third. Seven Defense Intelligence Agency civilian employees were killed while the Office of the Secretary of Defense lost one contractor. The U.S. Army suffered 75 fatalities53 civilians (47 employees and six contractors) and 22 soldierswhile the U.S. Navy suffered 42 fatalitiesnine civilians (six employees and three contractors) and 33 sailors. Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, an Army deputy chief of staff, was the highest-ranking military officer killed at the Pentagon; also killed was retired Rear Admiral Wilson Flagg, a passenger on the plane. LT Mari-Rae Sopper, JAGC, USNR, was also on board the flight, and was the first Navy Judge Advocate ever to be killed in action. Another 106 were injured on the ground and were treated at area hospitals.
On the side where the plane hit, the Pentagon is bordered by Interstate 395 and Washington Boulevard. Motorist Mary Lyman, who was on I-395, saw the airplane pass over at a "steep angle toward the ground and going fast" and then saw the cloud of smoke from the Pentagon. Omar Campo, another witness, was on the other side of the road:
|
Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work and stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon when the airplane flew over. "There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in." Daryl Donley witnessed the crash and took some of the first photographs of the site.
"USA Today" reporter Mike Walter was driving on Washington Boulevard when he witnessed the crash:
Terrance Kean, who lived in a nearby apartment building, heard the noise of loud jet engines, glanced out his window, and saw a "very, very large passenger jet". He watched "it just plow right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere." Tim Timmerman, who is a pilot himself, noticed American Airlines markings on the aircraft as he saw it hit the Pentagon. Other drivers on Washington Boulevard, Interstate 395, and Columbia Pike witnessed the crash, as did people in Pentagon City, Crystal City, and other nearby locations.
|
Rescue and recovery.
Rescue efforts began immediately after the crash. Almost all the successful rescues of survivors occurred within half an hour of the impact. Initially, rescue efforts were led by the military and civilian employees within the building. Within minutes, the first fire companies arrived and found these volunteers searching near the impact site. The firefighters ordered them to leave as they were not properly equipped or trained to deal with the hazards.
The Arlington County Fire Department (ACFD) assumed command of the immediate rescue operation within ten minutes of the crash. ACFD Assistant Chief James Schwartz implemented an incident command system (ICS) to coordinate response efforts among multiple agencies. It took about an hour for the ICS structure to become fully operational. Firefighters from Fort Myer and Reagan National Airport arrived within minutes. Rescue and firefighting efforts were impeded by rumors of additional incoming planes. Chief Schwartz ordered two evacuations during the day in response to these rumors.
|
As firefighters attempted to extinguish the fires, they watched the building in fear of a structural collapse. One firefighter remarked that they "pretty much knew the building was going to collapse because it started making weird sounds and creaking." Officials saw a cornice of the building move and ordered an evacuation. Minutes later, at 10:10, the upper floors of the damaged area of the Pentagon collapsed. The collapsed area was about at its widest point and at its deepest. The amount of time between impact and collapse allowed everyone on the fourth and fifth levels to evacuate safely before the structure collapsed. After 11:00, firefighters mounted a two-pronged attack against the fires. Officials estimated temperatures of up to . While progress was made against the interior fires by late afternoon, firefighters realized a flammable layer of wood under the Pentagon's slate roof had caught fire and begun to spread. Typical firefighting tactics were rendered useless by the reinforced structure as firefighters were unable to reach the fire to extinguish it. Firefighters instead made firebreaks in the roof on September 12 to prevent further spreading. At 18:00 on the 12th, Arlington County issued a press release stating the fire was "controlled" but not fully "extinguished". Firefighters continued to put out smaller fires that ignited in the succeeding days.
|
Various pieces of aircraft debris were found within the wreckage at the Pentagon. While on fire and escaping from the Navy Command Center, Lt. Kevin Shaeffer observed a chunk of the aircraft's nose cone and the nose landing gear in the service road between rings B and C. Early in the morning on Friday, September 14, Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team members Carlton Burkhammer and Brian Moravitz came across an "intact seat from the plane's cockpit", while paramedics and firefighters located the two black boxes near the punch out hole in the A–E drive, nearly into the building. The cockpit voice recorder was to retrieve any information, though the flight data recorder yielded useful information. Investigators also found a part of Nawaf al-Hazmi's driver's license in the North Parking Lot rubble pile. Personal effects belonging to victims were found and taken to Fort Myer.
Remains.
Army engineers determined by 17:30 on the first day that no survivors remained in the damaged section of the building. In the days after the crash, news reports emerged that up to 800 people had died. Army soldiers from Fort Belvoir were the first teams to survey the interior of the crash site and noted the presence of human remains. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue teams, including Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue assisted the search for remains, working through the National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS). Kevin Rimrodt, a Navy photographer surveying the Navy Command Center after the attacks, remarked that "there were so many bodies, I'd almost step on them. So I'd have to really take care to look backwards as I'm backing up in the dark, looking with a flashlight, making sure I'm not stepping on somebody." Debris from the Pentagon was taken to the Pentagon's north parking lot for more detailed search for remains and evidence.
|
Remains recovered from the Pentagon were photographed, and turned over to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner office, located at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The medical examiner's office was able to identify remains belonging to 179 of the victims. Investigators eventually identified 184 of the 189 people who died in the attack. The remains of the five hijackers were identified through a process of elimination, and were turned over as evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On September 21, the ACFD relinquished control of the crime scene to the FBI. The Washington Field Office, National Capital Response Squad (NCRS), and the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) led the crime scene investigation at the Pentagon.
By October 2, 2001, the search for evidence and remains was complete and the site was turned over to Pentagon officials. In 2002, the remains of 25 victims were buried collectively at Arlington National Cemetery, with a five-sided granite marker inscribed with the names of all the victims in the Pentagon. The ceremony also honored the five victims whose remains were never found.
|
Flight recorders.
About 03:40 on September 14, a paramedic and a firefighter who were searching through the debris of the impact site found two dark boxes, about long. They called for an FBI agent, who in turn called for someone from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB employee confirmed that these were the flight recorders ("black boxes") from American Airlines Flight77. Dick Bridges, deputy manager for Arlington County, Virginia, said the cockpit voice recorder was damaged on the outside and the flight data recorder was charred. Bridges said the recorders were found "right where the plane came into the building".
The cockpit voice recorder was transported to the NTSB lab in Washington, D.C., to see what data was salvageable. In its report, the NTSB identified the unit as an L-3 Communications, Fairchild Aviation Recorders model A-100A cockpit voice recordera device which records on magnetic tape. There were several loose pieces of magnetic tape that were found lying inside of the tape enclosure. No usable segments of tape were found inside the recorder; according to the NTSB's report, "[t]he majority of the recording tape was fused into a solid block of charred plastic". On the other hand, all the data from the flight data recorder, which used a solid-state drive, was recovered.
|
Continuity of operations.
At the moment of impact, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in his office on the other side of the Pentagon, away from the crash site. He ran to the site and assisted the injured. Rumsfeld returned to his office, and went to a conference room in the Executive Support Center where he joined a secure videoteleconference with Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials. On the day of the attacks, DoD officials considered moving their command operations to Site R, a backup facility in Pennsylvania. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld insisted he remain at the Pentagon, and sent Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to Site R. The National Military Command Center (NMCC) continued to operate at the Pentagon, even as smoke entered the facility. Engineers and building managers manipulated the ventilation and other building systems that still functioned to draw smoke out of the NMCC and bring in fresh air.
During a press conference held inside the Pentagon at 18:42, Rumsfeld announced, "The Pentagon's functioning. It will be in business tomorrow." Pentagon employees returned the next day to offices in mostly unaffected areas of the building. By the end of September, more workers returned to the lightly damaged areas of the Pentagon.
|
Aftermath.
Early estimates on rebuilding the damaged section of the Pentagon were that it would take three years to complete. However, the project moved forward at an accelerated pace and was completed by the first anniversary of the attack. The rebuilt section of the Pentagon includes a small indoor memorial and chapel at the point of impact. An outdoor memorial, commissioned by the Pentagon and designed by Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman, was completed on schedule for its dedication on September 11, 2008.
Security camera videos.
The Department of Defense released filmed footage on May 16, 2006, that was recorded by a security camera of American Airlines Flight77 crashing into the Pentagon, with a plane visible in one frame, as a "thin white blur" and an explosion following. The images were made public in response to a December 2004 Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch. Some still images from the video had previously been released and publicly circulated, but this was the first official release of the edited video of the crash.
|
A nearby Citgo service station also had security cameras, but a video released on September 15, 2006, did not show the crash because the camera was pointed away from the crash site.
The Doubletree Hotel in the nearby neighborhood of Crystal City also had a security camera video. The FBI released the video on December 4, 2006, in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by Scott Bingham. The footage is "grainy and the focus is soft, but a rapidly growing tower of smoke is visible in the distance on the upper edge of the frame as the plane crashes into the building."
Memorials.
On September 12, 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dedicated the Victims of Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The memorial specifically honors the five individuals for whom no identifiable remains were found. This included Dana Falkenberg, age three, who was aboard American Airlines Flight77 with her parents and older sister. A portion of the remains of 25 other victims are also buried at the site. The memorial is a pentagonal granite marker high. On five sides of the memorial along the top are inscribed the words "Victims of Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon September 11, 2001". Aluminum plaques, painted black, are inscribed with the names of the 184 victims of the terrorist attack. The site is located in Section 64, on a slight rise, which gives it a view of the Pentagon.
|
At the National September 11 Memorial, the names of the Pentagon victims are inscribed on six panels at the South Pool.
The Pentagon Memorial, located just southwest of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, is a permanent outdoor memorial to the 184 people who died as victims in the building and on American Airlines Flight77 during the September11 attacks. Designed by Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman of the architectural firm of Kaseman Beckman Advanced Strategies with engineers Buro Happold, the memorial opened on September 11, 2008, seven years after the attack.
Nationalities of victims on the aircraft.
The 53 passengers (excluding the hijackers) and six crew were from:
|
Ambush
An ambush is a surprise attack carried out by people lying in wait in a concealed position. The concealed position itself or the concealed person(s) may also be called an "". Ambushes as a basic fighting tactic of soldiers or of criminals have been used consistently throughout history, from ancient to modern warfare. The term "ambush" is also used in animal behavior studies, journalism, and marketing to describe methods of approach and strategy.
In the 20th century, a military ambush might involve thousands of soldiers on a large scale, such as at a choke point like a mountain pass. Conversely, it could involve a small irregular band or insurgent group attacking a regular armed-force patrol. Theoretically, a single well-armed, and concealed soldier could ambush other troops in a surprise attack.
In recent centuries, a military ambush can involve the exclusive or combined use of improvised explosive devices (IED). This allows attackers to hit enemy convoys or patrols while minimizing the risk of being exposed to return fire.
|
History.
The use of ambush tactics by early people dates as far back as two million years when anthropologists have recently suggested that ambush techniques were used to hunt large game.
One example from ancient times is the Battle of the Trebia River. Hannibal encamped within striking distance of the Romans with the Trebia River between them, and placed a strong force of cavalry and infantry in concealment, near the battle zone. He had noticed, says Polybius, a "place between the two camps, flat indeed and treeless, but well adapted for an ambuscade, as it was traversed by a water-course with steep banks, densely overgrown with brambles and other thorny plants, and here he proposed to lay a stratagem to surprise the enemy". When the Roman infantry became entangled in combat with his army, the hidden ambush force attacked the Roman infantry in the rear. The result was slaughter and defeat for the Romans. Nevertheless, the battle also displays the effects of good tactical discipline on the part of the ambushed force. Although most of the legions were lost, about 10,000 Romans cut their way through to safety, maintaining unit cohesion. This ability to maintain discipline and break out or maneuver away from a kill zone is a hallmark of good troops and training in any ambush situation.
|
Ambushes were widely used by the Lusitanians, in particular by their chieftain Viriathus. Their usual tactic, called "concursare", involved repeatedly charging and retreating, forcing the enemy to eventually give them chase, to set up ambushes in difficult terrain where allied forces would be awaiting. In his first victory, he eluded the siege of Roman praetor Gaius Vetilius and attracted him to a narrow pass next to the Barbesuda river, where he destroyed his army and killed the praetor. Viriathus's ability to turn chases into ambushes would grant him victories over a number of Roman generals.
Another Lusitanian ambush was performed by Curius and Apuleius on Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus, who led a numerically superior army complete with war elephants and Numidian cavalry. The ambush allowed Curius and Apuleius to steal Servilianus's loot train. However, a tactic error in their retreat led to the Romans retaking the train and putting the Lusitanians to flight. Viriathus later defeated Servilianus with a surprise attack.
|
Germanic war chief Arminius sprung an ambush against the Romans at Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This particular ambush was to affect the course of Western history. The Germanic forces demonstrated several principles needed for a successful ambush. They took cover in difficult forested terrain, allowing the warriors time and space to mass without detection. They had the element of surprise, and this was also aided by the defection of Arminius from Roman ranks prior to the battle. They sprang the attack when the Romans were most vulnerable; when they had left their fortified camp, and were on the march in a pounding rainstorm.
The Germans did not dawdle at the hour of decision but attacked quickly, using a massive series of short, rapid, vicious charges against the length of the whole Roman line, with charging units sometimes withdrawing to the forest to regroup while others took their place. The Germans also used blocking obstacles, erecting a trench and earthen wall to hinder Roman movement along the route of the killing zone. The result was a mass slaughter of the Romans and the destruction of three legions. The Germanic victory caused a limit on Roman expansion in the West. Ultimately, it established the Rhine as the boundary of the Roman Empire for the next four hundred years, until the decline of the Roman influence in the West. The Roman Empire made no further concerted attempts to conquer Germania beyond the Rhine.
|
There are many notable examples of ambushes during the Roman-Persian Wars. A year after their victory at Carrhae, the Parthians invaded Syria but were driven back after a Roman ambush near Antigonia. Roman Emperor Julian was mortally wounded in an ambush near Samarra in 363 during the retreat from his Persian campaign. A Byzantine invasion of Persian Armenia was repelled by a small force at Anglon who performed a meticulous ambush by using the rough terrain as a force multiplier and concealing in houses. Heraclius' discovery of a planned ambush by Shahrbaraz in 622 was a decisive factor in his campaign.
Arabia during Muhammad's era.
According to Muslim tradition, Islamic Prophet Muhammad used ambush tactics in his military campaigns. His first such use was during the Caravan raids. In the Kharrar caravan raid, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas was ordered to lead a raid against the Quraysh. His group consisted of about twenty Muhajirs. This raid was about a month after the previous one. Sa'd, with his soldiers, set up an ambush in the valley of Kharrar on the road to Mecca and waited to raid a Meccan caravan returning from Syria. However, the caravan had already passed and the Muslims returned to Medina without any loot.
|
Arab tribes during Muhammad's era also used ambush tactics. One example retold in Muslim tradition is said to have taken place during the First Raid on Banu Thalabah. The Banu Thalabah tribe were already aware of the impending attack; so they lay in wait for the Muslims. When Muhammad ibn Maslama arrived at the site, the Banu Thalabah with 100 men ambushed the Muslims while they were making preparation to sleep and, after a brief resistance, killed them all except for Muhammad ibn Maslama, who feigned death. A Muslim who happened to pass that way found him and assisted him to return to Medina. The raid was unsuccessful.
Procedure.
In modern warfare, an ambush can be employed by ground troops up to platoon size against enemy targets, which may be other ground troops, or possibly vehicles. However, in some situations, especially when deep behind enemy lines, the actual attack will be carried out by a platoon. A company-sized unit will be deployed to support the attack group, setting up and maintaining a forward patrol harbour from which the attacking force will deploy, and to which they will retire after the attack.
|
Planning.
Ambushes are complex multiphase operations and are therefore usually planned in some detail. First, a suitable killing zone is identified. This is where the ambush will be laid, where enemy units are expected to pass, and gives reasonable cover for the deployment, execution, and extraction phases of the ambush patrol. A path along a wooded valley floor would be a typical example.
Ambush can be described geometrically as:
Viet Cong ambush techniques.
Ambush criteria.
The terrain for the ambush had to meet strict criteria:
One important feature of the ambush was that the target units should 'pile up' after being attacked, thus preventing them any easy means of withdrawal from the kill zone and hindering their use of heavy weapons and supporting fire. Terrain was usually selected which would facilitate this and slow down the enemy. Any terrain around the ambush site which was not favourable to the ambushing force, or which offered some protection to the target, was heavily mined and booby trapped or pre-registered for mortars.
|
Ambush units.
The NVA/VC ambush formations consisted of:
Other elements might also be included if the situation demanded, such as a sniper screen along a nearby avenue of approach to delay enemy reinforcements.
Command posts.
When deploying into an ambush site, the NVA first occupied several observation posts, placed to detect the enemy as early as possible and to report on the formation it was using, its strength and firepower, as well as to provide early warning to the unit commander. Usually, one main OP and numerous secondary OPs were established. Runners and radios were used to communicate between the OPs and the main command post. The OPs were located so that enemy movement into the ambush could be observed. They would remain in position throughout the ambush to report routes of reinforcement and withdrawal by the enemy, as well as his manoeuvre options. Frequently the OPs were reinforced to squad size and served as flank security. The command post was situated in a central location, frequently on terrain which afforded it a vantage point overlooking the ambush site.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.