The Power of Nonverbal Communication All of which changed when the country entered World War II and full employment existed in the country. Interestingly, in the early 2000s, savvy computer users began using the old hobo symbols to indicate locations where free wireless Internet (wi-fi) connection was available. Perhaps most famously, during the years of slavery in the United States, many slaves escaped the South and headed for the North using the socalled “underground railroad” that was a means of succeeding in their quest. When the slaves reached safe havens, the bed quilts where they temporarily stayed gave them symbolic information on how to proceed on the next stage of their journey.
Semaphore And there are other places in which signs, symbols and colors have had significant importance. The U.S. Navy at one time used signals for ship-to-ship communication before they had sophisticated hi-tech equipment. At that time, the Navy relied on a symbolic system of communication called a “semaphore code”—a visual system of using flags.
The system had 26 positions for letters and three more for the words, “error,” “break,” and “front.” When the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 were used, they were the same as the letters “A” through “J.”
Ships communicated with each other by means of “semaphore” whenever they were within sight of each other and every word was spelled taking time to communicate a complete sentence. Additionally, it required four people in the operation; the person who wanted the message sent, probably a senior officer, a trained individual who used the flags in the 29 positions, the individual on the receiving end
172