Yesterday, a former athletic director for the University of Michigan, known as the developer of modern collegiate sports business practices, died after he suffered a ruptured abdominal aneurysm while driving, and propelled his car into a tree.
The local sports reporters were shook up about it, and remarked on the man's untimely demise.
I wondered at the use of the term "untimely demise", since the man was 87 years old.
Webster's defines "untimely" as "at an inopportune time", or -- and I think this is the sense meant in the phrase -- "before the due, natural, or proper time."
So, can a person whose death comes when he is 87 BE untimely??? What do you understand the phrase "untimely demise" to mean?
