[Ads-l] "Death by a thousand paper cuts": origin?

[Ben Zimmer]

The earliest example I've found comes from 1988.

---
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 23, 1988, p. A11 [Factiva]
Dick Williams, "Dan Quayle Is a Victim, But He Must Act Quickly"
The Republican vice-presidential nominee is suffering death by a thousand
paper cuts. By offering a thorough, cogent, one-piece view of events for
the press, Mr. Quayle can crawl back to the starting line of the
presidential race.
---


On Sun, Oct 9, 2022 at 3:12 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> Listening to Mark (“Butt Fumble”) Sanchez, one of the announcers of this
> morning’s Giants-Packers football match in London refer to Aaron Rodgers,
> Packers quarterback, march his team slowly but relentlessly down the field
> as performing “death by a thousand paper cuts” on the Giants’ defense, I
> wondered when this dated from. The original expression it’s based on,
> “death by a thousand cuts”, evidently renders an ancient Chinese torture
> method, lingchi, or so claims the internet. But the paper cut version is
> considerably more recent. Can anyone supply a first cite?  Just curious.
>
> LH (who has experienced many paper cuts, although not into the quadruple
> digits, and so lived to tell the tale)
>
> P.S.  The OED doesn’t help, having no entry for “paper cut”, much less
> fatal accumulation therefrom
>
>

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