semantic drift: "disrupt"
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Fri Jan 18 21:23:55 UTC 2008
The D.C. police are at the moment employing a bomb-squad robot called "Robocop" (maybe a trademark?) to investigate a suspicious vehicle. The police spokesperson is describing the
procedure, which includes knocking out a window with a robotic arm, as "disrupting the vehicle." She says too that, once it had broken its way inside, the robot could fire a stream of water "to further disrupt the vehicle."
I'd have said "neutralize," but "disrupt" seems to be the term of art.
JL
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