Word: hangman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...courthouse had been obliterated with a coat of pastel blue paint since Cardinal Mindszenty's trial (TIME, Feb. 14, 1949). But the same judge who had sentenced Mindszenty was in charge-Court President Vilmos Olti, a prominent, fascist of the Hitler era now known as the Red "government hangman." Mindszenty's prosecutor, Gyula Alapi, was also on hand again...
...Fine Job." The seven defendants standing before "Hangman" Olti looked freshly clothed and scrubbed. Quipped a newsman: "The undertaker did a fine job in preparing them...
Partridge clears Charles Dickens of all responsibility for the expression "go to the dickens," a Victorian nice-nellyism for "go to the devil." But Dickens' perpetually optimistic Mr. Micawber produced micawberish and the pompous Mr. Bumble lent his name to incompetence forever after. Similarly, a hangman named Derrick is immortalized in hoisting devices, French Physician Joseph Guillotin in a machine which struck him as more humane than the ax, and be-trousered Suffragette Amelia Bloomer in billowing pantalets. It is a process that has never stopped, concludes Partridge happily-from Solon, who became a synonym for lawyer...