irksome editorial rules

[calimac]

Another editor used to maintain a prohibition against the phrase died suddenly. “All deaths are sudden,” he’d declare solemnly. “One minute you’re alive and the next you’re not.” (Source)

You've never seen anyone dying in the hospital, have you?

Comments

[wild_patience]

I have always interpreted that as "died unexpectedly," as in a car crash or fatal heart attack. If someone's already in the hospital and gravely ill, it's not so sudden.