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Comment by covercash | Hacker News Reader

This was an assassination, yet not a single article about this contain that word.

Yeah even the title "bomb kills" sounds like a bad joke. Next newsflash at 11 will be like "bullet kills X" instead of using the right words.

Bombs kill bystanders all the time...

Here the bomb was in the car, aimed at killing a single person.

Exactly. A single bystander... No way to know if this was targeted.

Are you suggesting her car suicide bombed it's self, while she was in it?

No, it's an attempt at humor underscoring the futility of fighting the power that caused the "slaying".

And it's exactly why everyone is bringing up the "need" for EU investigative force. We know this isn't going anywhere and it happens often, even in the "advanced industrialized countries" we hold so dear.

Google News shows multiple uses of the word. Here is an example:

https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20171016/local/fo...

Is there really a significant difference between "assassination" and "slaying"?

You definitely have someone to blame when there's assassination, and also the whole country should take an image hit.

See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya

There's a very big difference.

Assassination = murder of a prominent person for political reasons, often carried out by a third party (an assassin).

Slaying = a killing. That's it. Besides not having any political motive, a slaying isn't even necessarily murder; killing someone in war, in self-defense or on accident is still a slaying.

I always thought that slaying refers to non-human victims, as in "slaying the dragon"

"Slaying" is mostly archaic outside of literary contexts at this point, but it does refer to both humans and animals. It's still used pretty often in North American crime journalism.

Some AP stories from the past two weeks found with a quick Google using "slaying" to refer to the killing of humans:

* https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2017-10-12/3-people-...

* https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/philly-man-arreste...

* https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/connecticut/articles...

in medieval times, it was common to refer to war casualties as having been 'slain in battle'.

I don't know what the etymology of the word is, but I get the impression it implies death by close combat. I personally wouldn't describe a bomb victim as having been 'slain'.

There could also just be a translation thing going on here, by someone whose first language isn't English.

Yes, if you shoot a politician or a journalist you're not only doing it to kill them, but to deprive their constituents or their audience of their services. That's why assassinations are considered worse than straight-up random murder.

It is a well established word with a commonly understood meaning in English. For example, a Lynching is another form of murder with a different and generally well understood meaning for native English speakers. If you're not a native English speaker, does your native language not have terms similar to these?

Yeah, I'm not a native speaker, and while I get there are different terms for different types of murder, it seemed "slay" was pretty much equivalent.

Slay is usually used for up close brutal killings. It has its origins in an old English word also used to mean to strike or hit something physically.

This was somewhat remote for the killer, possibly professional and likely politically motivated so assassination seems appropriate.

"Assassination" generally carries connotations of politically motivated violence that "slaying" does not.

The medium used, a bomb. Is typically associated with assassination. We are not talking about someone stabbing someone else here.

What matters in an assassination is the motive, not the weapon.

A murder-for-hire of a prominent politician committed by a third party with a car bomb on behalf of someone is not an assassination it was commissioned by their cheated-on spouse.

On the other hand, a politician or journalist being stabbed for political reasons is an assassination. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inejiro_Asanuma.

> What matters in an assassination is the motive, not the weapon.

Motive isn't always clear right after the event occurred. Could very well be speculation at that point.

Anyone can be a journalist btw. It isn't a protected profession with a title or degree requirement. "Professional journalism", OTOH..

A bomb is most commonly indiscriminately targeted at larger numbers of people, such as in cases of terrorism, which is by far the most common association for a bomb these days.

Assassination implies a very specific target. A bomb does not inherently and more often implies the intent of broad targeting.

"What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas".

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