Quick! Who What Does an Executioner Execute?**
If you like Quentin Tarantino’s movies but not all the Tarantino-esque violence and gore, I’ve got an alternative: read the screenplay instead.
That’s an option for Tarantino’s latest movie, “The Hateful Eight,” because the movie was adapted from Tarantino’s earlier screenplay.
At least on the page, you can absorb everything at your own pace, vs. being assaulted by the rapid-fire mayhem on a theatre screen (or having to press “pause” one too many times on a DVD, ruining the effect).
**The screenplay/movie shed new light on the word “executioner,” at least for me.
It turns out that what the executioner is executing isn’t a person, but a thing: specifically, a court order condemning someone to death.
Over time, that literal, legal definition has apparently been overtaken by the more common association with the word “execute.”
