Natural end to life

[Allen165]

"The people we deal with daily in our profession are at a late stage of their lives, and the cause of death in most cases is not an incurable disease, but a natural end to life."

Does that sentence make sense to you?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Jaskin]

hi,
Please note not a teacher nor a native speaker,
First thought - yes it makes sense; It's as clear as a bell.

Second .... what it is "a natural end to life" - it's death .. so the cause of death is death ... :-?
but as someone said I think too much .... :lol:

But I would go with the first one

Cheers

 

[emsr2d2]

"The people we deal with daily in our profession are at a late stage of their lives, and the cause of death in most cases is not an incurable disease, but a natural end to life."

Does that sentence make sense to you?

Thanks a lot!

It makes sense, but I'm not sure that I think that "the cause of death is....a natural end to life".

Death itself is an end to life.
A cause of death is natural causes/terminal illness/accident etc etc.

I would perhaps word it "The people we deal with daily in our profession are in the latter stages of their lives, and most of them die of natural causes not of an incurable disease/terminal illness". Personally, I prefer the phrase "terminal illness".

 

[Jaskin]

hi,
Please note I'm not a teacher nor a native speaker.

I thought that death of/from natural causes" includes illness whether terminal or not.

Cheers,

 

[Jaskin]

hi,
Please note I'm not a teacher nor a native speaker,

Oh me, KISS;

"The people we deal with daily in our profession are at a late stage of their lives, and the cause of death in most cases is not an incurable disease, but of old age"

Cheers

 

[euncu]

hi,
Please note I'm not a teacher nor a native speaker.

I thought that death of/from natural causes" includes illness whether terminal or not.

Cheers,

You are probably right but a language isn't just about technicality, it's more about the abstraction of people's common convictions. So it doesn't have to be tecnically true but has to be commonly accepted/agreed upon. I'm aware that my explanation's been a bit reductionist but I hope that, more or less, I've been able to make my opinion clear to you.

 

[Jaskin]

hi,

No, you didn't :-?

But if you like to continue this discussion I think we should move to general language discussion forum.


Cheers,

 

[euncu]

No, you didn't :-?

I'm sorry to hear that.
I'd be happy if you told me about the parts of my paragraph that have been unclear to you.

 

[Allen165]

It makes sense, but I'm not sure that I think that "the cause of death is....a natural end to life".

Death itself is an end to life.
A cause of death is natural causes/terminal illness/accident etc etc.

I would perhaps word it "The people we deal with daily in our profession are in the latter stages of their lives, and most of them die of natural causes not of an incurable disease/terminal illness". Personally, I prefer the phrase "terminal illness".

I think you meant to write "later stages," not "latter stages." Are you saying that "at a late stage" is wrong, or do you simply think "in the later stages" is better?

This is what I meant to write:

The people we deal with daily in our profession are in the later stages of their lives, and the cause of death in most cases is not an incurable disease, but old age.

Thanks!

 

[euncu]

Jaskin, I was to send this pm as a reply to yours but I couldn't. And you'd see the reason why.

"The following errors occurred with your submission:

1. Jaskin has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

If you are trying to send this message to multiple recipients, remove Jaskin from the recipient list and send the message again."


If you chose not to recieve any pms, you should not sent pms. I would have happy if you had written it on the thread.

The below was my reply to your pm;

hi,
I'm not really sure if you saying that accuracy isn't important part of language or that common understanding of "natural end of death" is "death from old age" .

Now, imagine for a sake of argument that the sentence comes from a piece targeted to a bunch of pathologists.

Best regards
J.

Ps. I'm sorry for not writing that as answer to your on the forum but as I said before it's a topic for a different forum. Fell free to start a new thread with that message if you like to continue.

Well, I'm not a doctor so I'm not sure how correct what I'm going to say is, but as far as I know, on the death certificates of the people who died at very old ages is written of cardiac or of respiratory disease as the cause of death. So, actually I was trying to say that I actually agreed on your post I quoted.

As for the matter you asked about on this pm.

"I'm not really sure if you saying that accuracy isn't important part of language..."

It may sound like that and even sometimes it is, maybe it would be different today if the emerge of languages was a recent event. But they date back to very archaic ages and at those early stages that languages were taking shape, they were shaped by the then people's conceptions.

Anyway, this discussion is far more than what I'd initially aimed when I answered that post so I'd better stop it now.

And as for your PS, no offence but I'd be happy if you keep that for newbies not for me, for I'm to decide whether I keep writing on that thread or open a new one. But thanks anyway for your considerate advice.

 

[bertietheblue]

I think you meant to write "later stages," not "latter stages."

:?: I doubt it - 'latter' is perfectly correct here.

 

[Allen165]

:?: I doubt it - 'latter' is perfectly correct here.

I don't think "in the later stages" is wrong. Assuming that both are correct, what's the difference in meaning?

 

[bertietheblue]

I don't think "in the later stages" is wrong. Assuming that both are correct, what's the difference in meaning?

'in the later stages of life' might suggest a person is old (or at least past middle age) but not that they haven't got long to live;

'in the latter stages of life' means a person hasn't got long to live, whether old or young.

Here's an Oxford English Dictionary definition of the latter, ie of latter:

belonging to the final stages of something, especially of a person's life: heart disease dogged his latter years.