Dot Wordsworth

Terrorists still can’t ‘execute’ anyone

The word's meaning is shifting – but not that fast

(Photo: MOHAMMED WESAM/AFP/Getty) 
issue 21 June 2014

During the sudden advances of ISIS in Iraq, one visual image stood for their brutality. As the Daily Mail reported it, there was ‘a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the roadside with a pistol to the back of his head’.

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