I'm not a doctor, but ...
When the Associated Press moved an article on the death of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, saying that she had “died of an aneurysm,” I knew that had to be wrong.
No one dies of an aneurysm — a bulge or sac in a blood vessel caused when the wall of the vessel has been weakened. No one “suffers an aneurysm,” as CNN said. People can walk around for days or weeks — for all I know, for years — harboring aneurysms, known or unknown, in their bodies.
A person dies when an aneurysm bursts or ruptures, causing a fatal hemorrhage.
Comments
Maybe that reporter's career died of bad grammar!!!
Posted by: Frank McCaffrey | August 22, 2008 3:28 PM
Yes, and people don't die of "apparent heart attacks" either. It's the real heart attacks that get you.
Posted by: Alan Gunn | August 22, 2008 3:48 PM
And everyone "dies instantly," another oft-used journo-necro-cliché.
Posted by: Fritinancy | August 22, 2008 4:23 PM
"Suffers an aneurysm"? The ridiculousness alone of that phrase makes me want to use it. As in, "Their grammar was so terrible I almost suffered an aneurysm."
People can walk around for days or weeks — for all I know, for years — harboring aneurysms, known or unknown, in their bodies.
Try "for a lifetime". Rates of undetected brain aneurysms being discovered on autopsy run around 3-6%.
Posted by: Abigail Carlson | August 24, 2008 4:44 PM