Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Origin of the verb to lynch

It says here: "But lynching is primordially a US invention--Larousse in fact defines it as 'summary justice, peculiar to the United States.' The Spanish verb linchar is a corruption of the English surname 'Lynch,' for Captain Charles Lynch, a Virginia judge during the American revolutionary war who advocated summary executions for those who stood with the British."

No comments: