night letter
n.— «“[The teacher] had a letter—what’s known as a night letter—posted on the outside of his house that pretty much said: ‘This is a message from the Taliban, you’re teaching infidel work and all their hedonistic information, if you don’t stop now, you’re going to be dealt with,’” recalled Hodgson. “So, he signed it and pretty much told them to pound salt, which is like go screw yourselves. ‘I’m going to go on teaching these kids,’ [he said,] and posted it back outside his house.” “The next night he was dragged from his house, beaten and executed. Seriously, if anyone is willing to do that to teach children, I would be more than happy to take a bullet for them.”» —“A soldier’s story” by Emily Senger in University of Calgary Gauntlet (Alberta, Canada) Mar. 8, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amid a 1796 heat wave, Jane Austen wrote to her sister, “What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Jane Austen’s Continual State of Inelegance in a 1796...
Daniel Mendelsohn is a widely acclaimed author, critic, classicist, and professor at Bard College. A few years ago, when he was teaching an undergraduate seminar on The Odyssey (Bookshop|Amazon) his 81-year-old father, Jay, decided to sit in on the...