Stages

The stages of grief ... from houses sold to relationships left to death. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/garden/27letgo.html?ex=1364356800&en=2770ec217ef40022&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Death of the physical body or death of the assured understanding that everyone reads English as well as I do. Case in point is the article with the New York Times. Each word in there is linked to a dictionary which defines it for readers who don't know how to read English or who read but don't understand the word they see on the page. But dictionaries, while good, do not give a whole story. They can't. They only define and pin a word to a page like a butterfly to a display board. Words live in the culture. And without context, all that anyone writes are just ... words. Shakespeare said it best in MacBeth....

There would have been a time for such a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time,And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.