Sunday, January 25, 2009

Family Tradition

Huh. Of all the things that run in families, I wouldn't have suspected a predilection to presidential assassination, but apparently so. The father of John Wilkes Booth has been shown to be the author of a letter threatening the assassination of Andrew Jackson. Wierd. Eerie.

Also, how does English not have a specific word ending in -cide for the assassination of presidents? C'mon, English. You're better than that.

2 comments:

RPW said...

Megalomania often does run in families, as well as schizophrenia...and then when you have someone that lives in a state of paranoia or megalomania, and they influence their kids...

nature or nurture? Who knows. I usually advocate both.

Shane said...

"Also, how does English not have a specific word ending in -cide for the assassination of presidents? C'mon, English. You're better than that."

You're absolutely right. English is better than that - in that we don't have an Académie française. If you coin the term your readership may pick it up. Or recommend it to Ryan North/Randall Munroe and it'll be part of internet culture, at least.