suicidal grammar
October 15, 2010 8:36 AM Subscribe
My newspaper recently reported that X "has died of an apparent suicide." This strikes me as grammatically fuzzy. "X has apparently committed suicide.", I know is correct. How else could this be correctly rephrased, or is the original perfectly fine?
The original is correct and fairly common for newspapers. Your version is even a bit ambiguous; the way the newspaper writes it, they lead with a confirmed fact (has died) and follow with the unconfirmed cause (apparent suicide).
posted by moviehawk at 8:39 AM on October 15, 2010 [5 favorites]
posted by moviehawk at 8:39 AM on October 15, 2010 [5 favorites]
eaglehound: "X has apparently committed suicide.", I know is correct.
Do you? By that statement's logic, X may or may not actually be dead.
To say someone "has died of an apparent suicide" is, to me, completely correct. What's definitely true is that X has died. What is not certain is the manner.
posted by mkultra at 8:40 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
Do you? By that statement's logic, X may or may not actually be dead.
To say someone "has died of an apparent suicide" is, to me, completely correct. What's definitely true is that X has died. What is not certain is the manner.
posted by mkultra at 8:40 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
"X has apparently committed suicide.", I know is correct.
It's grammatically correct, but it isn't at all saying the same thing as the (perfectly fine) original.
posted by Brockles at 8:43 AM on October 15, 2010
It's grammatically correct, but it isn't at all saying the same thing as the (perfectly fine) original.
posted by Brockles at 8:43 AM on October 15, 2010
The original is fine. Suicide is defined as "the act of killing yourself." So "X has died of an apparent act of killing himself" makes sense. The "of" might make it sound fuzzy to you because it does not sound self-referential.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:44 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:44 AM on October 15, 2010
"Apparent suicide" may also be the official cause of death as determined by the coroner.
posted by chevyvan at 8:46 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by chevyvan at 8:46 AM on October 15, 2010
Dasein is correct. While both phrases are grammatically fine, the newspaper phrased it so that it's slightly more emotionally distant. They want to report impartially, and sell papers, not make you go into a corner and sob uncontrollably.
posted by Melismata at 8:46 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by Melismata at 8:46 AM on October 15, 2010
The original is passive. "X has died" is sort of soft-balling the truth of "X apparently committed suicide." News reports are more often passive than we're used to reading in a world where we are taught to avoid the passive voice like the plague. Hence, it sounds and looks wrong to someone who's been taught to use the active voice (which uses fewer words - so when your professors/teachers say "don't use ten words where five will do" you're running into this same issue).
On preview, as Melismata says, passive voice is more emotionally distant.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:48 AM on October 15, 2010
On preview, as Melismata says, passive voice is more emotionally distant.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:48 AM on October 15, 2010
My newspaper recently reported that X "has died of an apparent suicide." This strikes me as grammatically fuzzy. "X has apparently committed suicide.", I know is correct. How else could this be correctly rephrased, or is the original perfectly fine?
I'm not sure what would be grammatically incorrect about "has died of an [adjective] suicide," regardless of whether the particular adjective is "apparent" or "mid-morning" or "drug-induced." Are you objecting to the use of apparent as an adjective rather than apparently as an adverb in general? As others have said, your version is lacks some of the clarity of the original because it does not qualify what exactly is "apparent" versus what is a known fact.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:48 AM on October 15, 2010
I'm not sure what would be grammatically incorrect about "has died of an [adjective] suicide," regardless of whether the particular adjective is "apparent" or "mid-morning" or "drug-induced." Are you objecting to the use of apparent as an adjective rather than apparently as an adverb in general? As others have said, your version is lacks some of the clarity of the original because it does not qualify what exactly is "apparent" versus what is a known fact.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:48 AM on October 15, 2010
If you wanted a different phrasing to preserve the meaning, you could say, "X has died, apparently by suicide," or something to that effect. The point is, we have confirmed the fact that X is deceased, but we have not yet confirmed the manner of death. It's possible that we'll later find out it was an accident or an elaborately staged homicide or something, and we want to be able to come back with those details later once we know for sure. It may sound awkward, but it's factually true.
posted by decathecting at 8:50 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by decathecting at 8:50 AM on October 15, 2010
X has died IN an apparent suicide.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:57 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:57 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'm not sure what would be grammatically incorrect about "has died of an [adjective] suicide"
I'm pretty sure what the poster's perceiving as "grammatically fuzzy" is in fact the awkwardness of the phrase "died of suicide." There are clearly some implicit rules for what can and can't work with "died of." I don't have a reference work handy, so this is just based on my intuition, but my best guess is this: died of is used mostly for proximate/physical causes of death, not the larger situations or motives that led to the death. We say died of cancer or died of a gunshot wound (or, metaphorically, died of a broken heart), but not *died of murder or *died of a car accident. "Died of suicide," though it's syntactically kosher, is at best a borderline usage, and is bound to sound very awkward to some readers.
posted by RogerB at 9:01 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure what the poster's perceiving as "grammatically fuzzy" is in fact the awkwardness of the phrase "died of suicide." There are clearly some implicit rules for what can and can't work with "died of." I don't have a reference work handy, so this is just based on my intuition, but my best guess is this: died of is used mostly for proximate/physical causes of death, not the larger situations or motives that led to the death. We say died of cancer or died of a gunshot wound (or, metaphorically, died of a broken heart), but not *died of murder or *died of a car accident. "Died of suicide," though it's syntactically kosher, is at best a borderline usage, and is bound to sound very awkward to some readers.
posted by RogerB at 9:01 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
The problem is the 'of'. You don't die of suicide any more than you die of homicide. "Person X has died of an apparent murder"? No. "Person X has died in an apparent suicide"? Sure, though maybe even better would be "Person X has died, in an apparent suicide."
posted by lapsangsouchong at 9:02 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by lapsangsouchong at 9:02 AM on October 15, 2010
"Person X has died of an apparent murder"
I don't see anything wrong with this.
posted by hermitosis at 9:05 AM on October 15, 2010
I don't see anything wrong with this.
posted by hermitosis at 9:05 AM on October 15, 2010
"Person X has died of an apparent murder"
I don't see anything wrong with this.
What's wrong is that you don't die OF murder, you die OF a gunshot wound or OF blunt force trauma IN a murder, just as you wouldn't say "Person X has died OF a bar fight" or "Person X has died OF a NATO airstrike."
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:28 AM on October 15, 2010
I don't see anything wrong with this.
What's wrong is that you don't die OF murder, you die OF a gunshot wound or OF blunt force trauma IN a murder, just as you wouldn't say "Person X has died OF a bar fight" or "Person X has died OF a NATO airstrike."
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:28 AM on October 15, 2010
The fact that "die of (a) murder" is ungrammatical doesn't determine that "die of an apparent murder" is also ungrammatical or wrong. (The set of grammatical sentences of a language is not closed under substitution of arbitrary noun phrases, and I can't really think of any a priori reason to believe that it would be.)
Here are some other cases that would violate this closure principle that people are reasoning from (with a name for the linguistic phenomena): "John saw a cat" -> "*John saw any cat" (NPIs), "there is a cat in the garden" -> "*there is every cat in the garden" (existential sentences), "John met most of the students" -> "*John met most of four students" (partitive constraint). Following on what RogerB said, the linguistic question then is how to explain why "die of an apparent murder" is (rather manifestly) grammatical, and what is the licensing principle for "an Adj murder"-type noun phrases, but I don't have an answer for that.
posted by advil at 9:44 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Here are some other cases that would violate this closure principle that people are reasoning from (with a name for the linguistic phenomena): "John saw a cat" -> "*John saw any cat" (NPIs), "there is a cat in the garden" -> "*there is every cat in the garden" (existential sentences), "John met most of the students" -> "*John met most of four students" (partitive constraint). Following on what RogerB said, the linguistic question then is how to explain why "die of an apparent murder" is (rather manifestly) grammatical, and what is the licensing principle for "an Adj murder"-type noun phrases, but I don't have an answer for that.
posted by advil at 9:44 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you, RogerB and others for more explicitly defining what I find awkward about the phrase - the passivity and lack of proximate cause.
posted by eaglehound at 9:50 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by eaglehound at 9:50 AM on October 15, 2010
As well, the "apparent" is useful because apparent suicide is not necessarily suicide. Adrienne Shelly died in what appeared to be suicide but later proved to be a homicide.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:20 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:20 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Two issues here -- the passive and a-proximate "died of suicide" is only one of them.
What I think you're balking at is the imprecise use of "apparent" as an adjective:
1) An "apparent" X: an X which we can see
2) "Apparently" X: to the extent we can be sure what's going on, it was X
3) An "apparent" X: a back-formation from (2): something that -- to the extent we can be sure what's going on -- was X
Usage 3 is a little awkward and probably would once have been viewed as nonstandard (precisely because it can easily be confused with usage 1).
posted by foursentences at 10:31 AM on October 15, 2010
What I think you're balking at is the imprecise use of "apparent" as an adjective:
1) An "apparent" X: an X which we can see
2) "Apparently" X: to the extent we can be sure what's going on, it was X
3) An "apparent" X: a back-formation from (2): something that -- to the extent we can be sure what's going on -- was X
Usage 3 is a little awkward and probably would once have been viewed as nonstandard (precisely because it can easily be confused with usage 1).
posted by foursentences at 10:31 AM on October 15, 2010
Yeah, "apparent suicide" qualifies it so that there is still room for a final (official) determination, such as homicide or natural causes.
posted by scody at 10:52 AM on October 15, 2010
posted by scody at 10:52 AM on October 15, 2010
How about this for a re-write:
"X is dead. He apparently committed suicide."
Which preserves the certainty of X's death while getting rid of the "died of suicide" construction some people are objecting to.
If the above is too blunt, it can be padded with details: "X was found dead at [time and/or place]. He apparently committed suicide, according to police spokesman [Name]."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:36 AM on October 15, 2010
"X is dead. He apparently committed suicide."
Which preserves the certainty of X's death while getting rid of the "died of suicide" construction some people are objecting to.
If the above is too blunt, it can be padded with details: "X was found dead at [time and/or place]. He apparently committed suicide, according to police spokesman [Name]."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:36 AM on October 15, 2010
"Suicide" is judgmental. The reporter should state the facts and let the reader draw whatever conclusions she or he wants.
Coroner Smith ruled that Johnson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
posted by no.mad at 11:51 AM on October 15, 2010
Coroner Smith ruled that Johnson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
posted by no.mad at 11:51 AM on October 15, 2010
Just want to note that there's nothing grammatically passive about "X has died of an apparent suicide". In that sentence, the subject of the verb "to die", X, is also the person who did the dying. Compare that to a passive sentence like "Caesar was killed by Brutus", where the subject of the verb "to kill" (Caesar) is different from the person who did the killing (Brutus).
There actually isn't a passive version of the verb "to die", generally, and that's because it's generally used intransitively. That means it takes no object - you could never say "He died Clara"; not even Jack the Ripper was capable of such a thing. So, since we form passive constructions by switching around the subject and object of an active verb, putting a form of "to be" in front of the verb, and sticking "by" in after it ("James loved Julie" --> "Julie was loved by James"), and since there is no object involved when it comes to intransitive verbs like "to die", there is just nowhere to go on the path to passiveness. (And then sometimes "to die" can be used transitively, as in "She died a peaceful death", which can become, awkwardly but grammatically, "A peaceful death was died by her".)
Of course, the meaning of the verb "to die" feels passive compared to something like "to commit suicide". Dying is not usually an action you carry out on purpose, so using it to describe a death by suicide seems to gloss over the deliberateness of the act. Personally, though, I don't think there's any problem with the sentence.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:34 PM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
There actually isn't a passive version of the verb "to die", generally, and that's because it's generally used intransitively. That means it takes no object - you could never say "He died Clara"; not even Jack the Ripper was capable of such a thing. So, since we form passive constructions by switching around the subject and object of an active verb, putting a form of "to be" in front of the verb, and sticking "by" in after it ("James loved Julie" --> "Julie was loved by James"), and since there is no object involved when it comes to intransitive verbs like "to die", there is just nowhere to go on the path to passiveness. (And then sometimes "to die" can be used transitively, as in "She died a peaceful death", which can become, awkwardly but grammatically, "A peaceful death was died by her".)
Of course, the meaning of the verb "to die" feels passive compared to something like "to commit suicide". Dying is not usually an action you carry out on purpose, so using it to describe a death by suicide seems to gloss over the deliberateness of the act. Personally, though, I don't think there's any problem with the sentence.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:34 PM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by RogerB at 8:38 AM on October 15, 2010 [6 favorites]