'Killing' for 'suicide'

[Damien Hall]

PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS

Benjamin noted:



The Seattle Times carried a version of this article. Forms of "kill" =

appear five times, but never "killing" as a noun. =
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019454146_bordershooting18m.html



They're all collocated with a reflexive, though - 'kill(ing) himself' four times and 'kill yourself' once (in a reader comment). That's a usual synonym for 'commit suicide', of course.  The Metro quote doesn't have that: 'Police [...] were trying to discover the motive for Tuesday's killing'. If others haven't come across 'killing' with no reflexive for 'suicide', it's beginning to look to me as if this is a hapax, or rare, caused by rushed editing.



Damien

--

Damien Hall
Newcastle University (UK)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org