assassination

[George Thompson]

Two more examples:
Years ago, I read in Hugh Thomas's book on the Spanish Civil War an excerpt from the autobiography of a Spanish anarchist named Durruti.  As I recall it, Durruti spoke of himself in the third person: Durruti, hearing that a condition of injustice prevailed in Saragosta, went there and shot the archbishop.
Clearly an assassination.
When I read this, I thought that Durruti had found a very simple solution to a no doubt complex problem.
Perhaps too simple, of course.

One of the characters in Ulysses tells a story about the Great O'Neill -- if I recall, the Earl of Tyrone -- during the reign of Elizabeth.  He was accused of setting fire to a cathedral.  He replied that he realized that it was a horrible sacrilege, and he only did it because he thought that the archbishop was inside.
The character who tells this story admired O'Neill for his forthright honesty, as I am sure we all must.
But was it an assassination attempt?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.

----- Original Message -----
From: George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 12:52 pm
Subject: Re: assassination
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> I should think that "assassination" et al. could be applied to the
> killing of a not-prominent person who stands as a representative of
> government.  There was a case a several years ago, in which an
> anti-government nut called in a false emergency and shot from ambush
> the cops who responded.
> The instance Charlie cites, an escaping carjacker shooting and killing
> a policeman, I would not consider an assassination -- the cop was not
> shot in his role as symbol.
> Would the bombs sent by Ted Kaczynski be called assassinations
> attempts?  He was in some way politically motivated and saw the
> recipients as deserving of being killed.  Or what of sending anthrax
> spores to a government office?
>
> There have been several instances in recent years of doctors who
> perform abortions being murdered.  These, too, I would call
> assassinations.  One was shot through his living room window by a
> sniper, another was shot on the steps of a church at close range.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 10:15 am
> Subject: assassination
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > Yesterday an escaping carjacker shot and killed an Athens GA
> > policeman.  Both the police chief and several TV commentators has been
> > referring to the murder as an "assassination."
> >
> > That use of the term sounds odd to me.  Some dictionaries, in entries
> > for the noun and its corresponding verb, specify the killing of a
> > "prominent person" or "public figure"; others say "especially" for
> > that limitation.
> >
> > The OED does not (nor does it give any examples of the noun or verb
> > from later than the mid-19th century, except in figurative senses, as
> > in "character assassination").  Should it?  I assume the
> > specialization of the terms (if such exists) is a somewhat receent
> > development (19th or 20th century).
> >
> > --Charlie
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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