A Bit About Obits

When subjects have made a shockingly youthful departure, we will include a brief note to illuminate readers, who are naturally curious to learn what it was that killed a brilliant cellist, for example, just as she was reaching her prime. Some of our counterparts on American newspapers extend this principle to the very elderly, and insist on noting that the centenarian hero they are obituarising was dispatched by congestive this, or complications of an infectious that. But we assume that our readers, if they feel the need to muse on what has done for a 117-year-old veteran of the silent film era, will assume that he or she has simply succumbed to old age.

Harry de Quetteville, obituaries editor at The Telegraph, wrote a rather funny pieceabout how stupid Americans are writing obituaries. Do you or don’t you always skim first for the cause of death? What country are you from?

Photo by Kenneth V. Pilon, via Shutterstock.