Manslaughter

Manslaughter; the crime of killing a human being without malice aforethought, or in circumstances not amounting to murder.

Why then does manslaughter sound more gory than murder?

Etymology says ‘no idea’ as usual.

As in “c.1300: killing of a cattle or sheep for food, killing of a person, from Scandinavian slahtr“.

That is, it has something to do with the Vikings. They probably had 300 different words for killing (like the aborigines had 300 for water). And we randomly pick one or two of them.

I reckon murder should be renamed manslaughter, and manslaughter ought to be renamed whoopsdeath.