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People such as social security clerks and railway staff whose jobs bring them
face to face with an irate public are often tempted to give as good as they get.
Now Graeme Proudler of Bristol People is patenting a device that does this
automatically—and with interest (GB 2357410/1). The “anti-abuser” has a
microphone and an amplifier that records the abuse and hurls it back. It can be
set to send back particularly choice snatches of a sentence immediately, such as
swear words. If throwing someone’s words back at them doesn’t defeat abusers,
the system produces a deafening shriek.