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Andrei Posted 21 years ago
Grammar

He died attended by his wife

0Greenpeace now has 2.5 million members in 40 countries. 02br
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00Time magazine named Bob Hunter one of the 20th Century's top eco-heroes. 02br
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00In other roles, he worked as an environmental reporter on TV as well as hosting Paper Cuts - in which he commented on the day's newspaper headlines clad in a bathrobe. 02br
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00"This was a man with a great loving heart, a brilliant mind and a massive spirit," said Stephen Hurlbut, CityTV vice-president of news programming. 02br
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00"Bob Hunter changed our world. It is a sadder world today, but a better world because of him." 02br
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00He died attended by his wife and three children, Canadian media report. 02br
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00He died attended by his wife and three children. 02br
00Is this grammatically correct? I know what it means; his wife and children were at his bedside at the time the death. 02br
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00It sounds odd and ungrammatical to say 'he died attended by his wife and three children'. 02br
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00When a person dies, would you say the death was attended by a doctor if a doctor was there at the time of the person's death? 02br
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00I know it would be correct to say attended by a doctor in the case of child birth. 0230hrefhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4507391.stm
  

Top answer

12blockquote 12br 02br 00It sounds quite odd to me! 02br 00It sounds as if his wife & children actively helped him to die... ) 0-

— Pieanne

  • 12blockquote 12br 02br 00It sounds quite odd to me!
  • 02br 00It sounds as if his wife & children actively helped him to die...
  • ) 0-
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13 Answers
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0 01blockquote
00He died attended by his wife and three children.12blockquote
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00It sounds quite odd to me! 02br
00It sounds as if his wife & children actively helped him to die... (but I may be wrong) 02br
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00At the very least, you want "attend by" here: "attended to by etc...) 0-
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0 Hello guys 02br
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00I don't think anything wrong with "He died attended by someone". We can use "attend" as a transitive verb in the sense of "minister/serve to a sick person". So why can't we say "attend a dying person"? Grammatically, "attended by three children" here can be interpreted as a contraction of an adverbial passive participle construct: "being attended by t
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0 I may have been wrong... The more I read the expression, the more I think I may have been wrong... 0-
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0 Paco, I would agree with you. In any case, the construction of the sentence is not excellent. I would write in simple manner so as to understand without any hassle. 0-
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0 To Andrei, 02br
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00You are right, "He died attended by his wife and three children." sounds not only odd but also that there is something very "wrong" with the sentence. If you change the verb "died" with e.g. "suffocated", "drowned", "choked", etc., you would know what I mean. I believe that the words "whilst being" are missing in the sentence. e.g. 02br
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0 To paco2004, 02br
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00Can you rephrase(without change in meaning) the sentence(below) which you referred to? 02br
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00{{ He (Pope Pius VI) was then required to renounce his temporal power, and, upon his refusal, was removed to Tuscany, and afterwards beyond the Alps to Valence, where in 1799 he died, attended by a solitary ecclesiastic. }} 02b
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0 I think in the original sentence it is clear that his death was attended by a solitary ecclesiasitc, not his removal to Valence. There might be a better way of punctuating the sentence, but I don't think you can arbitrarily remove any bunch of words that happen to fall between two commas. For example, you could hardly say "He was then required to recounce his temporal powers, and, upon his
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0 To khoff, 02br
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00You are right about the "temporal power and refusal part"( I was led astray by the word "then" after "was" at the begining of the sentence), but can you explain to me why is there a "comma" after "died" (.......where in 1799 he died, attended by a solitary ecclesiastic." and why is it not there in, "he died attended by his wife and children." ?? 02b
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0 Temico - I think all the commas are there because its a long, wordy sentence. Sometimes writers insert commas just to indicate where there would be a natural pause in speech, to give the reader a chance to catch his breath, rather than out of any grammatical necessity. 02br
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00I can't find the book to give you the exact quote right now, but I remember reading about a
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0 01blockquote
00He died attended by his wife and three children. 12br
10Is this grammatically correct?12blockquote
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00Yes. Grammatically it's perfect, as are all such structures, e.g., 02br
00"She jogged accompanied by a friend and two dogs". 02br
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00CJ 0-
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