"Sock It to Me"

[Laurence Horn]

>Jon, I don't think that there's anyone who knows anything about
>lynching who thinks that a lynching can be only a hanging. Emmitt Till
>wasn't hanged. In a famous lynching in Omaha, the lynchee was to a
>railroad crosstie and burned alive. There was a lynching in Missouri
>in which the lynchee was tied to the roof of a building, which was
>then burned down around him. During the Waco Horror, the lynchee was
>suspended by chains from a tree limb and roasted to death over a slow
>fire. Don't underestimate American ingenuity.
>
>-Wilson

But did any of these involve cases in which someone was pulled over,
thrown into a car or whatever, and taken to their place of execution?
The prototype instance of lynching (or so this would be suggested
from e.g. the very powerful displays of photographs documenting
lynching that traveled around to different museums recently) seem to
involve kidnapping someone from official custody and/or hanging, if
not both, rather than (as with Liuzzo and Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner)
seizing someone who was at liberty and executing them, even when the
reason has to do with racism.  Otherwise, what *is* the definition?
*Any* murder by vigilantes motivated by racism or religious
prejudice?  (The AHD entry does specify "especially by hanging",
FWIW.)  For example, did that fairly recent instance in which an
African-American man was picked out at random by some white racists
who dragged him to his death with their truck count as a lynching?
Or do the perpetrators have to be motivated by the belief that
society *ought* to put someone to death but won't, so they have to
take the law into their own hands?  Maybe this is really another case
of lexical prototypes.

Larry

>On 6/5/05, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: "Sock It to Me"
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  FWIW, "lynching" has never been restricted to hanging, though in
>>modern usage that does seem to be the usual connotation.
>>Undoubtedly it's been influenced by innumerable movie lynchings of
>>hoss and cattle thieves who are uniformly hanged by vigilantes.
>>
>>  JL
>>
>>  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  Poster: Laurence Horn
>>  Subject: Re: "Sock It to Me"
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 3:03 AM -0400 6/5/05, Sam Clements wrote:
>>  >----- Original Message -----
>>  >From: "Wilson Gray"
>>  >To:
>>  >Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 1:03 AM
>>  >Subject: Re: "Sock It to Me"
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >>Jesus! - you should pardon the expression - how long have you been
>>  >>living in this country, Ben? Are you really so unaware of the way that
>>  >>things were and are? Don't you recall that, in the _'Sixties,_ the
>>  >>lynching of blacks and even of some Jews was still a commonplace
>>  >>practice?
>>  >>-Wilson
>>  >
>>  >Assuming you're referring to Goodman and Schwermer, I'd hardly
>>call lynching
>>  >of Jews in the Sixties a "commonplace practice."
>>  >
>>  And technically, IIRC, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (along
>>  with James Chaney, who was of course black and not a Jew) were not
>>  lynched, nor was Violet Liuzzo (who was neither, but another murdered
>>  civil rights volunteer), although other whites working alongside
>>  blacks during those years may well have been murdered by lynching (as
>>  opposed to shooting, stabbing, burning, etc.) during the era of
>>  voting registrations drives and freedom riding. I can't recall
>>  hearing about any whites (Jewish or not) who were, though.
>>
>>  Larry
>>
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>
>--
>-Wilson Gray