Posted by Jay Livingston
When a sociology professor joked on her Facebook page about wanting to kill her students, her university put her, temporarily for now, on its no-teach list. A comment on my previous post agreed: even a joking reference to wanting to kill someone should be taken literally, and all such instances should be examined and investigated.
I wondered how big a job that might be, so I Googled a few phrases to see if there were perhaps one or two other potential killers out there. Here are the results.
(Click on the chart for a larger view.)I also tried these using Bing, which returned huge numbers – more than 50 million for each of these.
Some of the hits were serious, taken from statements by real killers. And some of them were from novels or songs (though if jokes reflect a person’s inner reality, so do fiction and lyrics). But many of them were the kind of “killing” that most of us have heard in everyday discourse.
A Yankee fan said of manager Joe Girardi,
I gotta admit there was a time last year when we weren’t hitting I just wanted to kill him.(How many umpires have actually been killed?)
Hockey elicits murder scenarios that are even more specific :
When the Sharks were playing Calgary in the ‘04 WCF, I wanted nothing more than to choke the life out of Nieminen because he was running around, kicking ass all over the place with that stupid perma-grin on his face (I once read that his nickname is “the joker”). I just wanted to kill him!Also, to nobody’s surprise, the teacher-student homicidal urge runs both ways.
I agree with Mr. _____ being the worst! I had him for 2 years and I just wanted to kill him. I even shouted at him because he was making me retake an exam I didn't want too. [Posted on a Facebook page]Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of potential killers are out there. And if Prof. Gadsden’s Facebook entries are cause for concern, someone should be checking up on these potential killers as well. They are lurking at sports, school, work (bosses, customers – be very afraid), even friends:
I took my friend to see [District 9] the other day . . he was bitching about it so much I just wanted to kill him >:| [Note to investigators: ignore the smiley face.]But most of the death threats, as you probably guessed, were all in the family. Husbands, it seems, are especially at risk.
I made a BEAUTIFUL Chateau Briand and my husband put KETCHUP on it. I just wanted to kill him!Ketchup on Chateaubriand?? Not guilty, your honor.
(What I find most interesting in these quotes is that the word “just” functions much the same as the smiley face to indicate that the words are not to be taken literally.)
1 comment:
It depends on the speaker and the context, obviously. If a boss says of the staff, "Sometimes I want to kill them..." and "Anyone know a good hit man for my employees?" one might not think the guy is literally homicidal. But if you hired the guy to run your shop, you might think the guy has a problem leading people. Encouraging them. Respecting them -- which is what you want in the boss you hire to run your shop.
Similarly, if you are a college administrator who finds "I didn't kill my students today" is a recurring theme of one of your teachers -- with idiotic smiley faces and the improper use of the word "discrete" -- then you are in your rights to stop the proceedings and ask what kind of attitude this teacher has and how effective can this teacher be.
For starters, this teacher shows a sad sense of humor, poor judgment and no discretion.
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