Assassination euphemisms

[Herb Stahlke]

ChiBemba, IIRC, has a gender distinction between Class 1/2 nouns that
are largely human nouns and Class 1a/2 nouns that include terms for
people in public office.  I don't know if they have different verbs
for killing members of the two classes.

Herb

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Assassination euphemisms
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Drawing the hard line between an assassination and a contract hit is
> something I am not prepared to do, but I probably should have put that
> in as a caveat--the distinction certainly crossed my mind when I put
> together my version of the list (hence the joke in the end).
>
> The problem is that "a contract hit" may well be one of the euphemisms.
> When the target is political or otherwise important, it's an
> assassination. When the target is a bit player--e.g., someone who simply
> offended a gang leader for some reason--it's just a hit. So another
> "euphemism" would be "to take a contract out on" (or same words in a
> different order). Another distinction may be that when a government
> agency or wannabe government group orders or buys the action, it's an
> assassination. When the contract or order is taken out by a criminal
> organization, it is not. But this is a weak distinction--consider, for
> example, some of the murders in the Godfather series, particularly
> Godfather 3. The murder of a high-positioned cleric qualifies as an
> assassination under the first definition above, but not the second,
> because it depends on who ordered it. For example, the poisoning of a
> Corleone ally may be an assassination (Vatican, after all, is a
> "country"), but the retaliatory murder (with glasses) does not, because
> it was ordered by criminals, not by someone within the Vatican
> hierarchy. For this reason I am not advocating for this distinction,
> even though I am putting it out as a possibility. A simpler approach
> might be to claim that all contract killings are assassinations, but
> that category is not exclusive either. A traditional government assassin
> of spy novels is still an assassin, even though he may work under
> orders, not under contract.
>
> But, by far the most oblique of assassination euphemisms in the latter
> context might be "make contact with" the target.
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 7/14/2010 8:59 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> At 1:00 AM -0400 7/14/10, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>>   retire [smne]/[smne] retired
>>> help to meet with an accident/met with an accident
>>> make/made way for new leadership
>>> eliminate
>>> pave/[d] the way for the new government
>>> end the career
>>> smoke/been smoked
>>> send a love letter
>>> cash/[ed] in the insurance/retirement policy
>>> [smne] cashed out/cashed the chips
>>> send to the morgue
>>> write a one-way ticket
>>> target
>>> drop
>>> pay respects [or, give smne the respect that he deserves]
>>> pay a visit
>>> silence [smne]
>>> "Paulie? Won't see him no more."
>>>
>> If we've moved beyond assassination to jargon for simple contract
>> hits and such, there's always "sleeping with the fishes" for the
>> aftermath.
>>
>> LH
>>
>
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