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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an english native speaker, so maybe I'm wrong but I always took "burned at the stake" as an expression for punishment which lead to death, not as the person was literally burned at a stake.

But, as I said, I might be wrong.

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Certainly in British English it would literally mean being tied to a stake and set on fire.

It is sometimes used just to indicate general punishment, particularly a demotion or sacking, usually where is it seen as over the top or unfair. In that case there is sometimes a link (stated or implied) to a "witch hunt" and the person burned at the state is considered a scapegoat. e.g. "no one quite knows where data leaked from, but John who used to be head of tech services was burned at the stake for it".

(source: native Englishman)

I'm not sure such a usage would be entertained when talking about someone where being burned at the stake is considered contemporary - i.e. it's only used where the expression is deliberately hyperbolic.

It is not even true as a metaphor. He died in his own bed (albeit under house arrest) due to "fever and heart palpitations"

So he was poisoned? ;)

I've always understood the expression in its literal sense. Joan of Arc is a well-known example who was executed in this way.

British punishment descriptions are quite literal.

Being hung, drawn, and quartered meant literally "Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces)."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered

Others are included in a more general article on capital punishments:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methods_of_capital_p...

as a native US english speaker, my take is that if the method of death is specified, it's specific: burned at the stake, hung, stoned, decapitated. If I wanted to be general, I would say, "was sentenced to death." There the method is left to the reader.

He died of natural causes. If I'm remembering from history class, he planted some of his work with a colleague to be published after his death, as a sort of death man's switch.

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