# Cause of Death in an Obituary Issue **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2022, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466 "2022-01-09T01:19:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/61 "2022-01-09T20:59:26Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Those death notices are not news items. They are paid advertisements. Hence they can contain whatever they want. Sure, but don’t tell me it’s none of my business to ask the cause of death when you’re making the death my business by paying to have my newspaper shove it into my face. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/62 "2022-01-09T21:04:18Z")
Never mind - not worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/63 "2022-01-09T21:12:24Z")
I wrote and paid for one for my father - died at 95, not suicide. You pay by length, why pay more to give information you might not want to give? As for gossip, 99.5% of readers won’t care one way or another if no cause is given. Even NY Times obits sometimes don’t give the cause, but usually say that no cause was given explicitly. I don’t think I gave the cause for my father because at 95 it’s not all that important. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/64 "2022-01-09T21:15:31Z")
I had a longtime coworker who died a while ago. He’d transferred to a different department a few years before I retired, and we lost touch. He was at least ten years younger than me, so I was curious how he died. No clue in his obit, but my imagination went wild. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/65 "2022-01-09T21:48:49Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > if the cause of death isn’t my business, then the death itself isn’t my business either. Then perhaps you shouldn’t read the obituaries. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/66 "2022-01-09T21:51:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > As for gossip, 99.5% of readers won’t care one way or another if no cause is given. If this thread is a microcosm of the real world, the percentage is no where near that universal. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/67 "2022-01-09T22:35:35Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The news is of the birth. I would expect they would give the date of birth. I didn’t ask for photos, rather basic facts. But they give the date of death. The analogy would be that for birth announcements you get to have the gossipy tidbits you like such as whether the parents were married, whether it was a planned pregnancy, etc. The death announcement is that Bob died. Why is it necessary to tell you how he died? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/68 "2022-01-09T22:42:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Sure, but don’t tell me it’s none of my business to ask the cause of death when you’re making the death my business by paying to have my newspaper shove it into my face. This would be like reading a divorce notice and demanding to know why they divorced. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/69 "2022-01-09T22:48:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > but don’t tell me it’s none of my business to ask the cause of death when you’re making the death my business by paying to have my newspaper shove it into my face. You know, I don’t much care about the fashion pages or the cooking pages in my local paper, so I don’t read them. When I turn the page and see it’s the cooking page, I simply turn to the next section. It’s certainly not being shoved in my face, and neither is the obituary page shoved in your face. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/70 "2022-01-09T22:59:35Z")
ZOMG my old town not only printed who got divorced in the newspaper, but also the grounds under which they filed (90% plus was no fault) and who got custody of the minor children. That really bothered me. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/71 "2022-01-09T23:45:42Z")
I once did a presentation on corpus study techniques, and used “obituaries” (death notices) as a genre for an example, demonstrating common collocations and lexical frequency. [Here is one graphic of most frequent terms](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AdkVCOOp-aH79ky6sb7QpD-roOShHJ8s/view?usp=sharing) (of about 25 items). The only cause of death I can see offhand is “cancer.” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/72 "2022-01-09T23:54:47Z")
I’m in the “everyone wants to know the cause of death, why not include it?” camp. But i will say that when my father died (of a pulmonary embolism, although the initial diagnosis was heart attack) I found it somewhat uncomfortable to say that in the Facebook post i put up. It’s just so…blunt, final, death-y. Death is an uncomfortable topic. Funeral rites are for the living, and especially for the family and those close to deceased. If it’s painful to list the cause of death, then i don’t begrudge them leaving it out. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/73 "2022-01-10T00:00:31Z")
Death of a loved one, even when expected and after a long life, an be one of the hardest things a family can contend with. Often writing an obit is painful and emotional. The fact that some think that they owe the reader specific information is an amazing sense of entitlement. I think the tie goes to the house in this case and give these grieving folks your empathy. Nothing wrong with being curious or wishing they added cause of death info. That perfectly natural. But to take it the extra steps further that somehow they’re harming you by leaving it out is mind boggling. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/74 "2022-01-10T00:01:38Z")
“It’s none of your business” is a justification, not a reason. The OP asked for a reason. Had the OP gotten in the face of someone who had just written a death notice about a loved one that omitted the cause of death, and demanded to know why, that would be rude, and deserving of the “none of your business” responses in this thread. But this is a perfectly appropriate forum in which to ask why the loved ones left behind are reluctant to share that information. Of course the public isn’t entitled to that information, but I bet it’s the first question on everyone’s mind, way ahead of most of the questions a typical obituary does answer. (Hands up if, upon hearing of an acquaintance’s death, you’ve ever thought “oh my! I wonder what high school he graduated from?”) Clearly, it’s not a matter of not thinking it interesting enough to include, but rather wanting to keep it private. Again, their prerogative, but the “why” of that desire is a perfectly legitimate topic for discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/75 "2022-01-10T00:02:06Z")
I remember taking a humanities elective course on sociology in college. The professor pointed out that obituaries/death notices almost always mentioned the profession of the deceased in the very first sentence or paragraph. The point was that work is central to how people are perceived. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/76 "2022-01-10T00:04:48Z")
If you’re replying to me (and the software makes it challenging to be sure), I have no issue with the OP or the question. The discussion is fine. It’s the posts that explicitly say the reader is entitled to that info if the family chooses to make an announcement that I am responding to. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/77 "2022-01-10T00:06:26Z")
> [@saje](#): > > It’s nobody’s business but the family’s, and there’s no cause that could make an untimely death less tragic. In other words, there’s no point to stating it. This. In childhood, 1960s, 70s, it was very rarely to state a cause of death, but occasionally you would see “of natural causes” or “cancer”, especially if the deceased was younger than age 50. Now, it seems to be listed more often. But I agree that it really is none of our business. The family choosing to state something, often does so to avoid having to explain to nosy Parkers, “It was cancer, no, it was cancer” over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/78 "2022-01-10T00:07:00Z")
I wasn’t, sorry; I’ve had that happen to me too. I was replying generally to a bunch of people early in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/79 "2022-01-10T00:08:33Z")
Ok, that’s cool. I find the quoting idiosyncrasies of the software really annoying. Sorry if I assumed! ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466/80 "2022-01-10T00:12:30Z")
Yes. Also, if the manner of death was at all difficult or controversial, the death notice itself provides an arena for mitigating that. That’s why you see “family,” “friends,” “love,” “life” so much bigger than the other words, which are all closer in size. In many ways, people tend to use the death notices to do exactly the opposite of what the OP would like them to do. Their function is to minimize the death itself as much as possible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cause-of-death-in-an-obituary-issue/957466.md?page=5)