By the way, we don’t have late editions anymore, either.
Oh. I still think it’s important to distinguish ads from copy, no matter how troubling your own personal problems are. And you might not have late editions anymore, but my home town papers continue to. Of course they’re also the assholes who make a clear distinction between the “death notices” that people pay them to publish and the news articles that they pay staffers to write, so what do they know?
And if you really need to argue further, do me a favor and take up your argument with dictionaries and reference books. Here’s wikipedia’s first graf:
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Have fun storming the castle.
I’ll give you the last word on this. Enjoy your weekend.
So your answer to the OP (asking “Do people usually have paintings in their houses?”) is a resounding “YES!! Of course!! They might have a Renoir masterpiece or they might have a wall that has been painted. Anything with paint on it is a ‘painting.’” That’s awfully helpful
I think for the question of the OP it’s totally irrelevant who writes whatever item appears in the newspaper, and how you want to label that item. The mystery novel revolved around the fact that nothing at all (neither obituary nor death notice) could be found, so the sleuth concluded that the supposed death must have been a fabrication.
Replace “a wall that has been painted” with “hideous still life by their Aunt Betty”, remove the “anything with paint on it…” straw man since I never said or implied that, and then you would be correct.
So my answer to the actual OP is a resounding "YES!! of course!! They might have an official obituary written by a newspaper if they were important, or they might have one that was written and paid for by their family, like most people. It may have been at one noble time that the only kind of obituary that existed was the kind written by the newspaper, and you may cringe at the thought of words written be the hands of the amateur masses gracing the sacred pages, but be glad for it! In these trying times, those paid obituaries are ironically giving life to a dying industry.
Look, for the purposes of the OP and the common lexicon, the word “obituary” is used to mean both an editorial obituary or paid-for or legally mandated death notice. I took journalism classes and worked in newspapers, so of course I learned the distinction. But it matters not. I call both “obituaries” except when it’s necessary to be that technical. Look on the Chicago Sun-Times or the Tribune’s website. On both websites, it is obvious they are using the word “obit” and “obituary” to refer to both types of death notices. In the paper, the Sun-Times (at least), does use the heading “death notice,” although it is blindingly obvious which ones are editorial (hint: they have a byline and are set in the usual editorial typefaces) and which ones are paid death notices (hint: they look like classified ads and don’t have a byline.)
It’s clear the OP is asking about any type of death notice, editorial/paid/required by law. Because that’s pretty much what everybody who is not in the industry calls them. (At least in my experience.)
How did the death faking scheme work? I would think an obit (insert your preferred word here) would generally be irrelevant.
Whether or not it’s every human’s God given right to have a death notice, it’s not the job of the newspaper to question the death.
If the death is faked well enough for the family to think he is dead they will send in a memorial. Even if they are in on the scheme and forget, the funeral director will suggest it. If he’s in on it, but the wrongly dead is prominent, a reporter still might write something.
How did this scheme work exactly?