{"id":14,"date":"2002-08-14T01:19:06-04:00","date_gmt":"2002-08-14T09:19:06+00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/wordpress\/?p=14"},"modified":"2002-08-14T01:19:06-04:00","modified_gmt":"2002-08-14T09:19:06+00:00","slug":"living-obituaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/blog\/2002\/08\/14\/living-obituaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Living obituaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

obituary<\/strong> (əU’bItjUərI) A record or announcement of a death or deaths, esp. in a newspaper; usually comprising a brief biographical sketch of the deceased.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.<\/p>\n\n

Perhaps it’s just me, but the term “living obituary<\/a>” seems… I don’t know, just wrong<\/em> somehow, like you’re just waiting<\/em> for someone to die. I came across it in the HTML<\/acronym> source for Salon’s article on Stan Lee while I was writing my last entry<\/a>, and it’s been bugging me ever since.<\/p>\n\n

I don’t have a problem with preparing so-called “advance obituaries”. Everyone’s heard of the various occasions when a still-living celebrity’s obituary has been sent out over the wires—most recently, and perhaps most famously, Associated Press published Bob Hope’s obit accidentally, and the story mushroomed<\/a>. What I don’t like is overloading the term (defined above) simply to refer to a profile, even if it’s one that hits “all the notes that standard profiles miss.”<\/p>\n\n

“Brilliant Careers” is a perfect title for Salon’s series of profiles. But they’re not obituaries, living or otherwise.<\/p><\/div>

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