‘Death by a thousand cuts’: Its journey from a Chinese torture technique to a Taylor Swift song:
The title of this article seems rather strange; how can a torture technique be linked to a Taylor Swift song in any way? Well, historical linguistics and etymology have brought us to, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating aspects of linguistics and language today: how the meanings of words or phrases change over time and become drastically different from their original definitions, illustrated especially well by the example I would like to draw your attention to today, the commonly used idiom ‘death by a thousand cuts’, which means the gradual decline or failure of something as a result of many minor mishaps over time.
Origins as a Chinese torture technique - 凌迟:
In the Ancient Chinese usage of this phrase, ‘death by a thousand cuts’ or ‘凌迟’ meant ‘slow slicing’ or ‘lingering death’. It was a method of torture, execution and humiliation all in one, reserved for only the worst criminals in Chinese society, including those who committed parricide (the killing of a parent or near relative), treason or mass murder. From this description alone, it is quite obvious that this torture technique was something gory and extremely painful, so if you’re easily sensitive to descriptions of torture, I’d suggest you skip to the next subheading below.
The criminal would first be tied to a wooden post or stick to prevent movement, then the executioner would begin the torture by carving out pieces of flesh, often flesh from the arms, legs and chest, removing pieces of muscle or skin before making a fatal cut to the heart or decapitating the criminal.
In reality, Western depictions of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ often dramatised the torture as typically, cuts were limited to around 3 dozen, instead of a thousand, which seems quite extreme. Moreover, prisoners were often offered opium before execution, and many executioners would let the criminal down slowly by killing them first, and then making a show of mutilating their body as an act of deterrence against committing horrible crimes; however, this does not diminish the fact that this torture method is gruesome and excruciatingly painful.
The reason why the punishment of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ was so humiliating was because in Confucian culture, the body was considered a sacred and temporary gift from one’s parents that needed to be returned in the same condition when one entered the afterlife as a sign of filial piety and respect for one’s parents. Carving up the criminal’s flesh prevented the criminal from honouring their parents and meant that torture would continue not just in the physical world, but would transcend into the spiritual world.
Now that we have some context on the origins of this phrase, we can now move on to its usage in Western culture and media.
How did ‘death by a thousand cuts’ spread to Western culture and media?
Western exposure to China was limited, but interest in Chinese law grew by the end of the 18th century, especially from the British, where extensive translations of the Qing penal code depicted punishments of ‘slicing’ skin and flesh, making them known to the Western world and helping solidify the idea that China was a country of barbarism and cruelty when in reality, this punishment was reserved for only the most treasonous criminals.
Descriptions of ‘lingchi’ or ‘death by a thousand cuts’ continued to be popularised in Western popular culture, especially through the visual medium where photographs taken in 1904 to 1905 by foreign military personnel made their way to Western outlets and continued to portray China as a savage and ruthless country, even though this torture technique was banned in China from 1905 onwards.
While the sensationalisation of ‘lingchi’ was highlighted by some travellers, including George Ernest Morrison, the brutal and dramatised version was the most popular and common idea of ‘lingchi’ in Western society. Morrison wrote that "lingchi [was] commonly, and quite wrongly, translated as 'death by slicing into 10,000 pieces' – a truly awful description of a punishment whose cruelty has been extraordinarily misrepresented ...", highlighting the idea that lingchi was often exaggerated and while it was still a horrendous torture technique, it was not quite as barbaric as some sources made it out to be.
Nevertheless, ‘lingchi’ became a symbol of the supposed wicked Chinese penal system that instilled a wave of shock and curiosity in the Western world and gradually became popularised in Western culture during the 19th and 20th centuries, something that grew to become the commonly known idiom we hear today.
The transition from punishment to common idiom:
Gradually, as the technique became exposed to Western media through the ways described above, writers began to figuratively use the phrase ‘death by a thousand cuts’ as a metaphor for a gradual decline or failure as a result of many smaller mishaps over time. The figurative use of the phrase became far more common than discussion of the Chinese torture technique because, obviously, the metaphorical idiom was more widely applicable in day-to-day contexts of life. Takes on the common idiom like Anthony Flew’s ‘death by a thousand qualifications’ in his book ‘Theology and Falsifications’ describes how a hypothesis or belief is rendered meaningless when constantly modified to avoid contradictory evidence.
‘Death by a thousand cuts can also be used in other contexts like describing a company’s trajectory, or even a failed relationship, which is exactly the context of the idiom that Taylor Swift used in her song titled ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ in her 2019 Album titled ‘Lover’. To my surprise, as quite a Swiftie myself, I couldn’t believe it when such a clear linguistic connection was drawn from one of my favourite songs of hers. The song talks about how the end of a relationship is not one dramatic moment, but a buildup of many small actions and losses which leaves the narrator of the song disoriented and emotionally destroyed as seen through the fitting line “Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts”, framing the farewell as torture of many small wounds rather than a clean and smooth end. Here, there are clear fragments of the original meaning of ‘death by a thousand cuts’, but the fascinating changing nature of language has opened us up to new interpretations and uses of the same phrase, leaving me awestruck by how the meanings of words can change so drastically in the span of just a few hundred years.
This article seems like a long-winded path to the conclusion that etymology and the origins of words or phrases are spectacular in how they’re able to mould and adapt to the times and contexts they inhabit, but I hope this serves as a clear example (like many out there) of the complete 180 degree shift that simple letters on a page can make and how deeply riveting language truly is. To end, hopefully you aren’t thinking about mutilation and torture the next time you listen to Taylor Swift, but… no promises!
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