Do not use heart failure for heart disease. All persons die because the heart fails to beat.
Write simply, he died, and not passed away, shuffled off this mortal coil, gave up the ghost, or any similarly amateurish phrase. There is no occasion for clothing the incident of death in a panoply of words, nor should birth be written of except simply. Do not say, a little stranger was ushered into a cold world, but a child was born. In writing of vital statistics—death, birth, marriage—be content to state the facts without unnecessary embellishment. Forget about the stork, the grim reaper, Hymen and Cupid.
A DICTIONARY
Wrote Sir Clifford Allbutt: "A dictionary 'sanctions' nothing of its contents, but it enables us by consultation of its stores to compare and choose for ourselves. In using this liberty we shall neither be subservient to the prescriptions of age, nor scornful of modern freedom; in every use we shall be guided by historical growth, the example of the best authors, and our present necessities."
SCOURGE OF EVIL DOERS . . . EXPOSER OF SECRET INIQUITIES . . . UNRELENTING FOE OF PRIVILEGE AND CORRUPTION.
SPELLING
LOOK IT UP IF YOU ARE NOT SURE.
BETTER LOOK IT UP ANYWAY.