Obit Writers Say the Darn'dest Things!

Obituary writers may be just about the most creative and humorous writers around. Possibly, are more amusing than they think.

Not that I would EVER make fun of someone in grief--but just to improve writing generally, I provide this free service in behalf of the community at large.

Since I last wrote on this topic, several amusing things have been printed in local obituaries, along with many more examples of the most common mistake I see: the deceased having been born in litters. "He was one of ten children born to So-and-So and Such-and-Such on May 10, 1924." It's not a problem to say he was one of ten children. It's not a problem to say on which date he was born. The problem people keep repeating at an alarming rate is putting both in the same sentence so that it says all ten children were born on that date. Considering how famous the Dionne quintuplets are, I would think I would have heard of this person before now if that were the case.

If you must put both facts on one sentence, try this: "One of ten children, he was born on May 10, 1924." How's that?

Okay, English lesson over. More amusing are the examples that follow.

A seventy-nine-year-old woman was described as "the apple of her father's eye." I'm sure she was. I only hope she also reached other milestones in the eighty years since she achieved that one.

About the woman who dashed onto the freeway so quickly that her car got centered on the wall and slid down it several yards before dumping her off onto a street below, we read, "She had an inherent sense for what to do and how to do it with style."

A man's wife was described as "the fire of his loins" FIVE days in a row. Because once was not embarrassing enough.

A wealthy couple who killed each other/themselves on Christmas Day when that wealth was threatened "left everything better than they found it." Well, sure. Just ask the hotel where they shot each other.

If other news articles have already let the whole world know how someone died, you might save your beloved some face by toning down the fairy tales a bit. But if your goal is to write and print something truly memorable, the less thought given to it, the better.