Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: Anyone Know Who Coined the Phrase "Death by a Thousand Small Cuts"

  1. #1
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Carlisle, PA
    Posts
    1,488

    Default Anyone Know Who Coined the Phrase "Death by a Thousand Small Cuts"

    It actually sounds like a former girl friend of mine but I suspect its origin lies elsewhere.

  2. #2
    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Fort Leavenworth, KS
    Posts
    1,510

    Default Went


  3. #3
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Carlisle, PA
    Posts
    1,488

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
    I wasn't specific. I meant who described Soviet support for insurgencies as a strategic variant of it.

  4. #4
    Council Member RTK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Wherever my stuff is
    Posts
    824

    Default

    This paper is from 1988.

    Check page 19 here.
    Example is better than precept.

  5. #5
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Carlisle, PA
    Posts
    1,488

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by RTK View Post
    This paper is from 1988.

    Check page 19 here.
    I read Denny's paper when it first came out, but I'm pretty sure the phrase originated with French strategic theorists in the 1950s.

  6. #6
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Posts
    278

    Default

    There was an old Chinese torture called Ling chi, a death by a thousand cuts. The cuts are all small, but in the end the person dies...

    Slow slicing (simplified Chinese: 凌迟; traditional Chinese: 凌遲; pinyin: língchí, alternately transliterated Ling Chi or Leng T'che), also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by/of a thousand cuts, is a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 to its abolition in 1905. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly.

    This method of execution became a fixture in the image of China among some Westerners. It appears in various romantic accounts of Chinese cruelty, such as Harold Lamb's 1930s biography of Genghis Khan.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing
    Last edited by Sarajevo071; 11-29-2007 at 01:35 AM.

  7. #7
    Council Member Danny's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Charlotte, North Carolina
    Posts
    141

    Default Girlfriend

    Steve,

    Dude. I'm sorry about your girlfriend and you ... sounds bad.

  8. #8
    Council Member zenpundit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    262

    Default Emperor Caligula

    From Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars

    On Caligula:

    "The method of execution that he preferred was to inflict numerous small wounds and his familiar order was 'make him feel that he is dying' "

  9. #9
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    DeRidder LA
    Posts
    3,949

    Default

    It actually sounds like a former girl friend of mine but I suspect its origin lies elsewhere.
    Steve, Dude. I'm sorry about your girlfriend and you ... sounds bad.
    On Caligula:
    Steve, you dated Caligula?

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •