A View to A Kill --a trivial vocabulary question?--

abdul   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 06:50 GMT
I have looked up a dictionary, but I still don't the meaning of 'a view to a kill' (a title of a James Bond movie --also a title of a song sing by Duran Duran).

Or, is it an idiom?
mjd   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 06:55 GMT
I suppose it's using "a kill" as a noun.

example:

Hunters may say...."That was a good kill."...upon shooting down a bird.

So I'd take "a view to a kill" to mean a view of a murder. It does sound awkward though.
abdul   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 07:01 GMT
Pardon me, I still don't understand. So, what is the meaning of 'a view of a murder'? I mean, is it "I want to check first before killing?"
Antonio   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 16:25 GMT
Perhaps it's just like 'dressed to kill'... but 'a view to a kill' ...
maybe a 'close look to a kill (death)'
mjd   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 19:07 GMT
Antonio's explanations is perhaps a bit clearer than my original. He's right. It's a "close look" or the sighting of a killing.

A view of a killing.
Carl   Thursday, May 01, 2003, 22:38 GMT
I suppose the whole point of the title is to make you think about the title.

It doesn't make perfect sense in English.
Jim   Friday, May 02, 2003, 01:51 GMT
I think Carl has a point. It doesn't really make much sense. If you have a veiw to doing something, that means you have an intention of doing it. So maybe "A View to a Kill" means an intention of killing someone. However, it still doesn't make perfect sense because it should then be "Killing" rather than "a Kill". Though, I think Carl's right: they just want to make you think & that's what I think.
Antonio   Friday, May 02, 2003, 03:12 GMT
Film Titles never make that sense, do they? :-)
Jim   Friday, May 02, 2003, 03:42 GMT
James Bond ones in particular.