(Scott Johnson) The phrase "death by a thousand cuts" is so concise and descriptive that I thought it must be Shakespearean, but it is a translation of the Chinese word "lingchi" (alternately transliterated ling chi or leng tech). The word is translated variously as death by a thousand cuts, the slow process, the lingering death, or slow slicing. It was a venerable form of torture and execution used in China from roughly
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