Last Words: Cherokee Bill (1876-1896)

"No! I didn't come here to make a speech. I came here to die."

Crawford Goldsby, more commonly known as Cherokee Bill, was a 19th century American outlaw who was responsible for the murders of seven men (including his brother-in-law).  He and his gang terrorised the Indian Territory for over two years.  Sentenced to death by hanging, he was asked on the gallows whwteher he had any last words and replied as above.

Last Words: Terry Kath (1946-1978)

"Don't worry…it's not loaded… "

Terry Kath was the original guitarist and founding member of the rock band Chicago.  After a party at a roadie's house, Kath put an unloaded .38 revolver to his head and pulled  the trigger several times on the empty chambers. He then picked up a semiautomatic 9 mm pistol and put that to his head.  His friend expressed concern so Kath showed the empty magazine to his friend, saying, "Don't worry, it's not loaded." However, one bullet remained in the chamber.  When he pullked the trigger with the pistol against his head, he died instantly.  He was one week off his 32nd birthday.

Last Words: George Sanders (1906-1972)

"Dear World,

I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool.  Good luck."

- Suicide note of George Sanders, British actor and novelist.

David Niven wrote in his autobiography Bring On the Empty Horses that his friend Sanders, in 1937 at the age of 31, had predicted he would commit suicide when he was 65

Words: Macquarie Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year

Official announcement:

Word of the Year:

"Shovel-ready": a building or infrastructure project capable of being initiated immediately, as soon as funding is assured. "Shovel-ready projects were worthy to receive money from the economic stimulus package because they could provide jobs immediately.'' - editor Susan Butler.

People's Choice:

"Tweet": to post a message on the social network site Twitter.

Honourable Mentions:

"Head-nodder'': a supporter of a politician or other media figure who stands beside them in the frame of a television shot and nods his or her head in agreement with what the speaker is saying;
"Cyberbully'': a person who bullies another using email, chat rooms and social network sites;
"Roar factor'': the influence that a home crowd has on a referee or umpire in making adjudications.

Last Words: Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant (1864-1902)

"Don't make a mess of it - shoot straight, you bastards."

Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet and soldier, nicknamed 'Breaker" for his skill with horses.  Morant was court-martialed and executed by the British, charged with killing Boer prisoners.  To the end he claimed to have been following orders.

Last words: Vincent Van Gogh

"The sadness will last forever."
- Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Vincent Van Gogh set out into the fields with his easel and painting materials on 27 July 1890. He had been painting the wheat fields of Auvers since May. By July the weather had worsened and he wrote to his brother Theo of "vast fields of wheat under troubled skies", saying that he did not "need to go out of my way to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness" One of his last paintings, Wheatfield with Crows, is often referenced as being the work he painted on 27 July, however it can only be identified as having been painted in the month of his death. It is a powerful painting and is commonly interpreted as showing his troubled state of mind, with a dark, forbidding sky, the indecision of three paths going in different directions and the black crows overhead being signs of foreboding or even death.

On 27 July whilst in the fields he shot himself in the stomach with a revolver. He was able to make his way home and survived for 3 days, dying in Theo's arms. Theo later wrote "He himself wanted to die; when I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said 'La tristesse durera toujours' ('The sadness will last forever.')

Vincent's funeral and burial took place on 30 July. His long term friend, the painter Emile Bernard, wrote to Gustave-Albert Aurier: "On the walls of the room where his body was laid out all his last canvases were hung making a sort of halo for him and the brilliance of the genius that radiated from them made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered with a simple white cloth and surrounded with masses of flowers, the sunflowers that he loved so much, yellow dahlias, yellow flowers everywhere. It was, you will remember, his favourite colour, the symbol of the light that he dreamed of being in people's hearts as well as in works of art. "