# "Loses battle with" \[disease\] **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 12, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868 "2015-03-12T22:43:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/1 "2015-03-12T22:43:20Z")
Apropos of the recent death of the great Sir Terry Pratchett, he died of [Alzheimer’s](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/terry-pratchett-acclaimed-fantasy-novelist-dies-aged-66-10104147.html), the London Standard there reports _“Fantasy novelist Sir Terry Pratchett dies aged 66 after losing battle with Alzheimer’s”_. This isn’t unique to Alzheimer’s, but for some reason the wording of ‘losing a battle’ to refer to someone dying of a disease _really_ rubs me up the wrong way, as if the disease has some sort of will and the person wasn’t ‘strong’ enough to overcome it or something. Is it just me? Why don’t they just say ‘having suffered from’ [disease] or ‘as a result of’ [disease]? ---
**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:** [March 12, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/2 "2015-03-12T22:49:59Z")
I know people who had terrible diseases and from what I saw, it was a battle. A battle to keep taking medicines that made them sick, a battle to be strong for kids and family, a battle to enjoy their life in the face of fear and a battle to make hard decisions about treatment plans and stick to those choices. Some lived and some died but they all faught in one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/3 "2015-03-12T22:51:59Z")
It kinda bugs me the same way any cliche bugs me. Especially if they toss the word “courageous” in there. Besides, if you are dead, you haven’t just lost the _battle_. You’ve lost the war. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/4 "2015-03-12T22:54:40Z")
Since _everyone_ who has Alzheimer’s loses their “battle”, it does seem a little redundant. It’s not like they had a chance of winning. Besides, the battle isn’t between the patient and the disease, it’s between the disease and medical science. The patient is the battlefield. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/5 "2015-03-12T22:55:56Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I know people who had terrible diseases and from what I saw, it was a battle. A battle to keep taking medicines that made them sick, a battle to be strong for kids and family, a battle to enjoy their life in the face of fear and a battle to make hard decisions about treatment plans and stick to those choices. Some lived and some died but they all faught in one way or another. I’m not saying for a second that life with these awful diseases isn’t a struggle, although how much ones ability to ‘fight back’ as it were may be limited due to the nature of the disease, but it hacks me off that they are described as having ‘lost’ to an unthinking condition. Like it ascribes a will, that the person slipped up somehow or was too weak and the disease conspired to ‘win’, and thus killed them. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/6 "2015-03-12T23:04:50Z")
Someone wrote that about my father in an intra-departmental memo, when he died of pancreatic cancer. It really rubbed me wrong. Especially since my father had a DNR, which meant that technically, if we want to use war metaphors, he surrendered. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/7 "2015-03-12T23:06:58Z")
It may be a cliche, but it seems an appropriate characterization to me. > [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > Besides, the battle isn’t between the patient and the disease, it’s between the disease and medical science. The patient is the battlefield. No, _that’s_ the war. Each patient is _a_ battlefield. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/8 "2015-03-12T23:08:59Z")
I don’t want in any way to denigrate the incredible personal strength it takes to take on a serious disease. People do fight, and fight hard. But this is such an overused expression that it no longer carries any meaning. Time to find a new one. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/9 "2015-03-12T23:09:16Z")
I guess that my grandmother, who died in her 90s, “lost her battle with old age?” ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/10 "2015-03-12T23:11:19Z")
I told the people that matter to me that if that happens to me, please don’t post that _I fought a long, courageous battle with_ whatever. A long, courageous battle and then I eventually lost…how depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/11 "2015-03-12T23:13:58Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > …it hacks me off that they are described as having ‘lost’ to an unthinking condition. Like it ascribes a will… Only in metaphor. Have you never felt that you were “battling” or “struggling” with a difficult task or circumstance? Have you never felt that you “overcame” some such, or were “defeated by” it? ---
**Author:** ![Recusant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@Recusant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recusant)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/12 "2015-03-12T23:17:27Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Besides, if you are dead, you haven’t just lost the _battle_. You’ve lost the war. Well, no; you’re just dead. But with a number of diseases- cancer, most notably- the pathogen doesn’t outlast the victim. You die, but so does the cancer. That’s not a loss, it’s a tie- a Pyrrhic tie, perhaps, but a tie nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/13 "2015-03-12T23:22:27Z")
> [@Recusant](#): > > Well, no; you’re just dead. But with a number of diseases- cancer, most notably- the pathogen doesn’t outlast the victim. You die, but so does the cancer. That’s not a loss, it’s a tie- a Pyrrhic tie, perhaps, but a tie nonetheless. But we can trash talk the tumor and it can’t trash talk back. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/14 "2015-03-12T23:25:53Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Only in metaphor. Have you never felt that you were “battling” or “struggling” with a difficult task or circumstance? Have you never felt that you “overcame” some such, or were “defeated by” it? Of course, but I’d be annoyed if I died of something I had zero hope of surviving and then everyone said I ‘lost a battle’ (well more accurately I’d be dead, but you get the idea). Usually one fights a battle in hopes of winning; there’s the overt implication that the thing was two-sided. I think the metaphor rather falls down when applied to dying of a disease you can do nothing about. ETA; On the same subject in regards to [Roger Ebert](http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/04/roger-ebert-lose-battle-cancer.html), found a good blog post from an MD, who puts it better than me on treating diseases (cancer especially) as a game of winners and losers; > [@](#): > > It’s not the battle part that bothers me – it is the losing part. For those who ultimately die from a cancer, the idea that they have lost a battle implies to me that if they had just done something else differently then maybe they might have won. The use of the word, “lose” is like a zero-sum game to me: if someone or something loses then that means that someone or something else wins. You can’t have a loser if you don’t have winner. We should not so easily give cancer that kind of power over us. > > What other diseases or condition do we cede this kind of power to? My mother died a few years ago from acute respiratory distress brought on by H1N1. Did anyone say that she lost her battle to a virus? No, she died from a respiratory infection. … > > Then why do so many deaths from cancer get reported as, “after a long struggle/battle, so-and-so lost his battle with cancer?” It’s not quite blaming the victim but it does have ring of placing the ultimate responsibility for having died in the hands of the deceased. ---
**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:** [March 12, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/15 "2015-03-12T23:29:28Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Of course, but I’d be annoyed if I died of something I had zero hope of surviving and then everyone said I ‘lost a battle’ (well more accurately I’d be dead, but you get the idea). Usually one fights a battle in hopes of winning; there’s the overt implication that the thing was two-sided. I think the metaphor rather falls down when applied to dying of a disease you can do nothing about. Not necessarily- you can fight for things even if you know you won’t win. You can fight for a principle, for example, or to prove a point. The fight isn’t always about winning, but what the fight means to you. I know a man who fought his disease long and hard, with no hope of winning, just so his kids knew he tried everything to stay with them. He may lost the battle, but the battle itself was meaningful to him. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/16 "2015-03-12T23:37:34Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Not necessarily- you can fight for things even if you know you won’t win. You can fight for a principle, for example, or to prove a point. The fight isn’t always about winning, but what the fight means to you. I know a man who fought his disease long and hard, with no hope of winning, just so his kids knew he tried everything to stay with them. He may lost the battle, but the battle itself was meaningful to him. But why say that they ‘lost’ the battle (or fight, if you prefer)? Why not say it plain; they suffered from a disease which claimed their life, which would be more truthful and have none of the implications of being ‘beaten’, or that those who survived the disease fought harder or somesuch. Who would want to acknowledge that some disease ‘won’? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/17 "2015-03-12T23:43:36Z")
1. Not everybody fights. Some just succumb. (I do not imply a moral judgment either way.) 2. Some who fight _do_ win, against certain disease ‘opponents.’ > [@Velocity](#): > > I guess that my grandmother, who died in her 90s, “lost her battle with old age?” _Did_ she struggle against it? The metaphor is a good one in its place, but not applicable to _all_ lives or deaths. ---
**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:** [March 12, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/18 "2015-03-12T23:44:22Z")
I don’t think there’s any person who doesn’t understand that no one is saying “what a loser, he let the disease win”. The point if the expression, as cliched as it’s become, is that being sick can be unbelievably hard and treating it can be a physical and mental battle of wills. The sick person is not a passive recipient of the disease but the struggle they went through deserves respect. The point of the saying isn’t the “lost” part but the “battle” part. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/19 "2015-03-12T23:50:05Z")
my doctor’s cured my cancer five years ago last month. I always say I endured cancer because that is truly how it was. Never really thought that I fought it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868/20 "2015-03-12T23:56:15Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I don’t think there’s any person who doesn’t understand that no one is saying “what a loser, he let the disease win”. The point if the expression, as cliched as it’s become, is that being sick can be unbelievably hard and treating it can be a physical and mental battle of wills. The sick person is not a passive recipient of the disease but the struggle they went through deserves respect. > > The point of the saying isn’t the “lost” part but the “battle” part. By the same token, is there anyone who doesn’t understand that Alzheimer’s, cancers and so on is a struggle? Although to be honest I think wrapping it up in a win/lose metaphor makes it sound like you’re engaging with the disease in a straight up fight of wills and denigrates the conditions of the actual disease to the level of cliche. There’s the related but not nearly as infuriating (to me) phrase that someone “…died after a long battle with [disease]”, which keeps the idea intact without overtly implying that a disease won despite your efforts. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loses-battle-with-disease/714868.md?page=2)