MAGIC WORDS can work wonders. "Discipline we called a kind of miracle: in fact, is it not miraculous how one man moves hundreds of thousands; each unit of whom it may be loves him not, and singly fears him not, yet has to obey him, to go hither or go thither, to march and halt, to give death, and even to receive it, as if a Fate had spoken; and the word of command becomes, almost in the literal sense, a magic-word? Which magic-word, again, if it be once forgotten; the spell of it once broken! The legions of assiduous ministering spirits rise on you now as menacing fiends; your free orderly arena becomes a tumult-place of the Nether Pit, and the hapless magician is rent limb from limb." Meanings: • An authoritative order that brooks no disobedience • The Word of God In Literature: • "It's a good step from the Officers' Home to the Harbour Office; but with the magic word 'Command' in my head I found myself suddenly on the quay as if transported there in the twinkling of an eye, before a portal of dressed white stone above a flight of shallow white steps. . . . The broad inner staircase insinuated itself under my feet somehow. Command is a strong magic." -- Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line (1915) • "Magic ball bounce high, I command you." -- Jim Wiese, Magic Science (1998) • "By the powers of ancient Goll, I command this carpet to fly!" -- Tony Abbott, Secrets of Droon 13 (2001) • "By the Lords of Magic, I command you to stop." -- Andrew Attias, Bogg (2002) Compound Interest Facts: This is a magic phrase recommended by professional magician Karl Fulves for tricks involving bankbooks. For example, when making a coin magically travel from a deposit slip to a bankbook, he suggests: "'All I have to do is say the magic words 'Compound Interest,' you remark. As you say this, wave the pen over your pocket and over the bankbook. Remove the paper from your pocket and tear it to bits to show that the coin has vanished. Then tip the bankbook, allowing the coin to slide out into view." 0 0 Self-Working Paper Magic (1985)