Reason Campbell-the author's experiences teaching in a maximum-security prison.Ĭampbell's book, which is subtitled "Teaching in a Maximum Security Prison," seems to be mainly about the experience of being a teacher in that setting, rather than particularly involving work with condemned prisoners. Lykins asserts he has been dead for some time, but when he died of what cause or why he is permitted to remain on earth were questions to which he replied, "I don’t know."īut most relevant to the modern prison sense of "dead man walking" is this item in a " New Books" column in the Focus News (December 15, 1978):ĭEAD MAN WALKING, W. Lexington, Ky., March 16-Declaring in answer to questions about himself that he is a " dead man walking on earth," Claude Lykins, who was brought to the county jail here for safe, keeping after it is alleged he killed his wife in Morgan county, would not discuss the crime of which he is charged. ![]() Somewhat similar is this instance from " Wife Slayer Says He's Already 'Dead Man'," in the Richmond Daily Register (March 16, 1920): "The corporal was bitten by a mad horse, and sooner or later he will go mad and die." We heard him speak, we saw him in apparent good health, we listened to his songs and stories at night, and yet every man who heard and saw and listened kept repeating over and over to himself: So it was, and yet we could not but feel that he was a dead man walking about among us. You will say it was curious that we avoided him. We had nothing more to say, except among ourselves, but from that hour every trooper in "C" company felt that Corporal Wallace was a doomed man, just as surely doomed as if a court-martial had sentenced him to death and the president had refused to interfere with the findings. "It's only a scratch, and we won't talk about it," the corporal made answer to all his comrades." "Pooh, man, no danger, no danger!" the surgeon had said, as he dressed the wound. From " A Soldier's Doom: The Horrible Result of a Bite from a Mad Horse," in the Warren County Democrat (January 17, 1895): There is an interesting early instance of the wording used in the sense of "man doomed to die" (although not following conviction of a crime). (I haven't found any information on this point.) It may, however, have been broadened subsequently to apply to anyone living in prison under a death sentence. In prison lingo, "dead man walking" seems initially to have referred to a condemned person walking to the place of execution. Such a person might be a "dead man walking" for years. ![]() I would distinguish between instances of "dead man walking" in the sense of "a man walking as if he were dead" and instances of the same phrase used in the sense of "man condemned or in some inescapable way doomed to die soon." Writers and speakers might use the phrase in the former sense in situations where the "dead man" is purposeless and joyless, but not necessarily headed for imminent death. When did the figurative informal usage first appear? Was it an AmE or a BrE extension of the more common expression? What's the origin of the expression 'dead man walking'? Could it have been taken from some religious writings for instance? Ngrams shows earlier usage instances but it is not clear where the expression comes from,( the spike in usage from the mid-90s is obviously due to the popular movie of the same name). Thomas Hardy wrote a poem in 1909 whose title was " The Dead Man Walking" where he used an expression which was probably already known at that time. The original AmE expression appears to have been coined in relation to death executions but it has probably an older history. ![]() any person in a doomed or untenable situation, esp one about to lose his or her job.(US) a condemned man walking from his prison cell to a place of execution.īut is more commonly and informally used to refer to:.The recent epithet used by George Osborne " dead woman walking" is a clear reference to the more common expression:ĭead man walking whose original meaning is:
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