Assassination euphemisms

[Mark Mandel]

AHD3 defines "assassinate" as "to murder (a prominent person) by surprise
attack, as for political reasons". That satisfies me, assuming that the "as"
modifier is taken as example, not as restriction.

By the second definition that you cite, which refers to the originator of
the action, Lincoln was not assassinated, and it's a matter of ongoing
disagreement whether John F. Kennedy was. That seems to me a good argument
*against* that definition.

m a m

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

>  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-)
>
>

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