Assassins

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Apologies firstly to Claire, my diligent partner in learning, who sent a first-class fact to my sick bed this morning to ease the creative process for me. Regrettably, I randomly stumbled upon another topic that is just too intriguing to pass up, so I'm going to have to pass on Servite's 'fact of the week', for this week at least. Man, I feel really bad. OK, here's what I've got.

The first use of the word 'assassination' in the English language is in the Shakespeare Play, MacBeth.

We've covered MacBeth before, of course, way back in January, when I discovered that only a real pussy would stoop to calling it 'the Scottish play'. Also, it's perhaps no revelation that a word made its first appearance in a Shakespeare play - if you look hard enough, you can even find 'iPod', 'cheeseburger' and 'fisting' in the second half of Troilus and Cressida. Maybe. No, the interest here comes from another fact, one that I sadly could not prove - that the word 'assassin' is derived from the hashshashin, a sect of 11th century Shia Muslims who were probably a great deal scarier than they sound (their name does sound like assassin, albeit if it were enunciated by the duck from Tom and Jerry).

There is uncertainty over whether the hashshashin lent their name to the modern term 'assassin' (which is odd, given that it's basically the same word, and they used to assassinate people quite a bit). What's also up for debate is what hashshashin originally means - it could mean 'followers of Hasan' or could mean (slightly more topical, this) - 'hash eaters'. So the word 'assassin' could basically mean 'pothead'. Anyone out there trying to enjoy a nice FBB in the afternoon sun can now feel just that little more like a criminal, following the government's decision to upgrade cannabis from a Class C to a Class B drug, against expert opinion and despite any hard evidence of the dangers it poses. It's got to the point now where people at my work, who actually have to help people with all kinds of substance addictions, think that cannabis actually gives you paranoid schizophrenia. I can only respond that the dangers are being wildly over-exaggerated through gritted teeth, and then they all react like I'm Jimi fucking Hendrix, sparking a 12" all-herb doobie whilst torching my guitar.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, assassinations. It's an odd word because it's kind of subjective as to when it can be applied. Assassination is basically the killing of a high-profile person, usually for ideological or political reasons - so JFK and Benazir Bhutto both clearly fit into that category. But John Lennon's killer basically shot him because he was a first-class nut, but this would still be called an assassination - so basically it boils down to the level of fame of the unfortunate victim. Was Jill Dando assassinated? What about Versace? I'm sure there are celebrities out there who, should the unthinkable happen, head straight to the news aisle of the great supermarket in the sky to see whether they were assassinated, or plain old killed...

Stop Press: Extra fact for your time today - in sourcing above photo, I have discovered that the impudent duckling from Tom & Jerry is in fact named Quacker.