Mysteries of vernacular: Assassin.
通用俗语的谜团：Assassin.
A murderer who relies on the element of surprise to attack a prominent personage.
Assassin是指那种以让人意外的方式攻击一位著名人士的谋杀者。
The word "assassin" comes from the Arabic "Hashshashin", which means "hashish user".
assassin这个词出自阿拉伯语的Hashshashin，意思是吸食大麻的人。
The history of Hashshashin is sensational but unconfirmed.
Hashshashin的历史，耸人听闻却从未经证实。
In the early 11th century, a man named al-Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah became the leader of a band of Persian extremists.
在11世纪初，一个名叫阿尔·哈桑-阿尔-萨巴赫的人，成为了一群波斯极端分子的首领。

According to legend and various tenuous accounts, al-Hassan gave his men hashish as a way of deceiving them into loyalty.
根据传说以及各种各样的说法，阿尔·哈桑给了自己手下大麻，以此作为一种欺骗他们、使其忠诚的方式。
These young men became known as "Aschishin" or "followers of Hassan".
于是这些年轻人就以“Aschishin”或“哈桑的追随者”而为人所知。
From their fortress in the mountains, al-Hassan ordered his men who were highly-trained warriors to do away with his enemies.
在位于山中的堡垒里，阿尔·哈桑命令那些训练有素的战士，去除掉他的敌人。
No one was safe. From sultans to counts, the Aschishin spread terror throughout the region.
从苏丹到谢赫，没有一个人能幸免。这些Aschishin在整个地区传播恐怖主义。
When the word "Aschishin" was transmuted into English, the pluralizing suffix "in" was mistaken to be part of the word.
当Aschishin这个词转化成英语后，复数后缀被误以为是这个单词的一部分。
For this reason, the modern word "Assassin" is singular, referring to only one surprise murderer, as if that weren't enough.
由于这个原因，所以现在Assassin是个单数名词，仅仅指一个意外谋杀者，好像人数不足一样。