UNIT
UNTIL
1
MY
DYING
DAY
1 Answer the following questions.
1. Why do you think most people are afraid
to die? Are you?
2. Do you think our lifespan is too short?
3. Would you like to know exactly when you
will die?
4. For whom do you think it is harder to
experience their own death, children or
adults?
5. What’s your approach to the idea of life
after death?
6. Some people claim that life, and actually
everything in it, has no meaning because we
all die eventually. Do you agree?
7. In some cultures, death is considered a
DEATH Expressions
transition into a better realm and thus is
joyfully celebrated; whereas in other
cultures it is a grievous moment. How is
death seen in your country, and how
justified do you think people’s feelings
about it are?
8. Have you ever witnessed anyone’s death?
What did you do? How did you feel?
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2 Match the following expressions to their meanings.
1. to be at death’s door
a. to look / feel very ill
2. to put sb to death
b. for as long as each of a couple live
3. like death warmed up
c. as long as I live
4. dying words
d. to become extinct or stop existing
5. to die a natural death
e. to be very ill
6. to / until my dying day
f. to become quieter / less obvious
7. to die for
g. indomitable
8. to be dying for sth / to do sth
h. to be extremely eager to do sth
9. never-say-die (adj.)
i. to die by disease or old age
10. to die down
j. to kill sb as a punishment
11. to die out
k. (something) excellent / beautiful
12. till death do us part
l. last words
Until My Dying Day
1
Unit
3 Complete the following sentences with the expressions from Exercise 2 in the correct form.
1. Looking at the overwhelming number of divorces, I have grown too skeptical of the …………………………………………….
philosophy.
2. I’ll carry the memory of my child being born ……………………………………………. .
3. I hope my ……………………………………………. won’t be: “I wish I’d spent my money on travelling rather than on
material things.”
4. It is my firm conviction that rapists should be ……………………………………………. .
5. One of my biggest dreams is to ……………………………………………. in my sleep.
6. Many opinion-makers claim that humankind will eventually ……………………………………………. due to climate change,
but I believe all this talk about the climate is nothing more than sheer lobbying.
7. The last time I felt ……………………………………………. was when COVID-19 went on a rampage.
8. The Birkin bag is definitely a bag ……………………………………………. .
9. My father always evinced the ……………………………………………. attitude whenever afflicted with life’s hardships.
10. I’m ……………………………………………. to visit Easter Island one day.
4 Say if the sentences in Exercise 3 are true for you.
5 Read the introduction to the article, and, on the basis of Chris
Fuller’s experience, say why death is a process. Do you agree with
Dr. Drake’s statement?
What Happens When We Die
Part I
All of the world’s civilisations, throughout
human history, have contemplated what
happens when we die, both scientifically and
spiritually — and the answers have always
varied quite a bit.
What happens when we die is perhaps one
of the greatest mysteries on Earth, simply
because none of us know the answer and yet all
of us will experience death eventually.
Humankind’s greatest thinkers have been
pondering this question for millennia, and in
1994, an orthopaedic surgeon, named Chris
Fuller, may have come close to solving this great
mystery when he was struck by a nearly-fatal
bolt of lightning in upstate New York. Fuller said
he felt himself flying backward and the next
thing he remembered was turning around to
see his body lying on the ground.
For a moment, Fuller later reported, he
stood there and watched a woman perform
CPR on his body. Then he floated up a flight of
stairs and saw his children playing in their
rooms.
“Then I was surrounded by a bluish-white
light,” Fuller recalled, “an enormous feeling of
well-being and peace. The highest and lowest
points of my life raced by me. I had the
perception of accelerating, being drawn up.
Then, as I was saying to myself, ‘This is the most
glorious feeling I have ever had’ — slam! I was
back.”
According to Dr. Sam Drake, who has
studied near-death experiences for years,
Fuller’s encounter was not an uncommon one.
“Death is a process,” Dr. Drake added. “It is
not a black and white moment.”
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Unit
Until My Dying Day
6 Do you think the following statements are True or False?
1. A dying person’s breath becomes clearly audible.
2. As soon as a person dies, their body stiffens immediately.
3. Our brain ceases to operate right after the heart stops beating.
4. The temperature of a corpse is usually the same as the temperature of the room in which it is placed.
5. Skin and nails keep growing for many hours after a person dies.
7 Read the continuation of the article and check your conjectures which you made about the
statements in Exercise 6.
What Happens When We Die
Part II
In recent years, doctors like Sam Drake and
close-call survivors like Chris Fuller have helped
to deepen humanity’s understanding of what
happens when we die. Although death itself is
shrouded in mystery until we experience it for
ourselves, scientists do know what happens to
our bodies right before and after it.
At first, according to medical sources, a
person’s breathing will become irregular and
unusually shallow or deep. Their breath may
then begin to sound like a rattle or a gurgle,
which happens because the person cannot
cough up or swallow the secretions in their chest
and throat.
All of this is part of the process of the body
slowing and shutting down. Then, at the moment
of death, every muscle in the body relaxes. This
may cause the person to moan or sigh as any
excess air is released from their lungs and into
their throat and vocal cords. Meanwhile, as the
body relaxes, the pupils dilate, the jaw may fall
open, and the skin sags. If the person has any
urine or faeces in their body, these will then be
released too.
But as Dr. Drake suggested, death doesn’t
happen instantly, and some researchers assert
that our brain can operate up to ten minutes
after our heart stops beating.
Within the first hour of death, the body
begins to experience the “death chill” or algor
mortis. This is when the corpse cools from its
normal temperature to the temperature of the
room around it.
After a couple of hours, blood will begin to
flow into the body areas closest to the ground
due to gravity. This is known as livor mortis. If
the body stays in the same position for several
hours, these body parts will start to look
bruised while the rest of the body grows pale.
Limbs and joints will then begin to stiffen
within a few hours after death during a process
called rigor mortis. When the body is at its
maximum stiffness, the knees and elbows will
be flexed and the fingers and toes may appear
crooked. But after around 12 hours, the rigor
mortis process will start to reverse, which is due
to the decay of internal tissue, and it lasts
between one and three days. During this
reversal, the skin begins to tighten and shrink,
creating the illusion that the person’s hair, nails,
and teeth have grown. The skin tightening is
also responsible for the illusion that blood has
been sucked from the corpse, which inspired
some of the vampire legends of medieval
Europe that we still know today.
Which piece of the information in the article do you find most puzzling?
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Until My Dying Day
1
Unit
8 Look at the bold expressions in the texts in Exercises 5 and 7 and write them down next to
their definitions.
1. very enjoyable glorious
2. the process of decomposition decay
3. to become larger dilate
4. to hang loosely through lack of strength sags
5. to think carefully pondering
6. a bubbling sound like that made by water running out of a bottle gurgle
crooked
7. twisted out of shape
shrouded
in mystery
8. completely unknown
9. a rapid succession of short sounds rattle
9 Complete the following questions with the correct form of the words in Exercise 8.
gurgle
1. Do you like babies who lie in their cots and ……………………………….
at you happily?
dilate
2. Do you have any inkling of when and why a person’s pupils ……………………………….?
glorious time? What was the occasion?
3. When did you last have a really ……………………………….
shrouded in mysterywould you like to finally comprehend?
4. What two supernatural phenomena, which are largely ……………………………….,
pondering
5. How often do you find yourself ………………………………. human stupidity? What is your definition of stupidity?
rattle
6. Do you think ……………………………….
snakes are really as dangerous as they are portrayed?
7. Why do you think public healthcare has been in ……………………………….
for such a long time?
decay
crooked
8. Which is less unattractive to you in someone’s appearance – ………………………………. teeth or ungroomed nails?
sag
9. Would you start going to the gym if you noticed that your muscles ……………………………….?
10 Answer the questions in Exercise 9.
11 Listen to a general practitioner, Dr. Ford, speaking about WHAT DYING FEELS LIKE and answer
the following questions.
1. Why do a significant number of
dying people feel the urge to go to
the toilet?
2. What is the natural cause of the
depression that some people feel
before death?
3. What does the doctor describe
with the expression “shrouded in
mystery”?
12 Are you surprised by any
information mentioned in the
interview?
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Unit
Until My Dying Day
Grammar
Irregular Plural Nouns
13 Listen to the following excerpts from the interview and complete the gaps with the missing words.
Answer the questions that follow.
1. Well, death is one of the most inscrutable ………………………………………., and therefore my answer may come as a
surprise to you.
2. Based on several scientific ………………………………………., most people will die in bed, but of the group that doesn’t,
the majority will die sitting on the lavatory.
3. But because it’s so often difficult or impossible for dying people to express how they’re feeling during the event,
the ………………………………………. which sheds light on how it feels when we die remains largely shrouded in mystery.
What is the singular form of the nouns in 1 and 2?
What is the plural form of the noun in 3?
14 Check what you might already know. Choose the proper plural form of the nouns in the following
sentences.
1. I agree with some theologians who claim that animals have no importance in Christianity while referring to the
story in the New Testament that shows Jesus casting demons out of a man and into a herd of swines / swine
causing them to run down a hill into a lake and drown in it.
2. One of her psychological research thesis / theses states that it is the survival instinct that stimulates people to
start hoarding in times of general quarantine.
3. Titmice / Titmouses are probably my most favourite birds.
4. I admire my director for her ability to manage all sorts of crises / crisis with great aplomb.
5. I never buy products which don’t meet certain environmental criterions / criteria.
6. In my opinion, children should not be led into believing that Santa Clause and his eight reindeer / reindeers exist.
7. Foie gras is considered to be incredibly delicious. That said, I’m dead set against maltreating geese / goose by
force-feeding them.
8. If taxes were abolished or at least curtailed, it would provide people with a lot of stimulus / stimuli to set up their
own businesses.
9. What fascinates me about salmon / salmons is that they make an incredible upstream journey to spawn in the
same places where they hatched.
10. I think I’m more afraid of bacteria / bacteriums than viruses.
15 Go to page 76 to find out more about irregular plural nouns and practise them.
16 Read the sentences in Exercise 14 again and share your viewpoints on them.
17 Answer the following questions.
1. While the vast majority of people are scared of death, there are still an impressive number of people who decide
to end their lives by means of suicide or euthanasia. What’s your standpoint on these patterns of human behaviour?
Do you understand such people?
2. Would it be a good thing if some of the methods of ending one’s life were legalised? What would the likely
consequences be?
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Until My Dying Day
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Unit
18 Listen to a podcast about euthanasia and answer
the following questions.
1. Why did the woman move to Oregon?
2. What is the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide?
3. What is passive euthanasia?
4. What requirements, laid down by the Death with Dignity Act,
do those who want to end their life legally have to fulfil?
5. Why is Switzerland famed for suicide tourism?
6. Why do most doctors refuse to take part in euthanasia?
19 How do you feel about the information you’ve just heard?
Reference Phrases
20 Complete the following sentences from the podcast with the expressions provided.
Then listen to check your answers.
When it comes to
As if that were not enough
The facts notwithstanding
First off
1. …………………………………., there are a couple of things we should define.
2. …………………………………., they also have to be at least 18 years old, residents of those states, and have a terminal
illness that two doctors agree will lead to death within six months.
3. …………………………………. Switzerland, legally assisted suicide is allowed there.
4. …………………………………., it is worth mentioning that in the vast majority of countries, doctors will not participate in
euthanasia or assisted suicide.
The expressions that you used to fill in the sentences in Exercise 20 are all reference phrases, which are widely used
in speaking and writing to refer to something that has been said before or to lead on to more information.
21 Study the following list of useful reference phrases and fill the gaps in them with ONE missing word.
1. with regard ………………….
2. …………………. regards
3. …………………. I think of it
4. to be …………………. specific
5. last but not ………………….
6. in such …………………. situation
7. …………………. that as it may
8. …………………. my surprise
9. to everyone’s …………………. amazement
10. hard …………………. it is to believe
11. …………………. the same token
12. …………………. it comes to
13. …………………. a moral standpoint
14. …………………. reference to
15. …………………. that said
16. ......……………. being the case
17. believe it or ………………….
18. and as if that …………………. not enough
19. it goes …………………. saying that
20. contrary …………………. expectations
21. interestingly ………………….
22. .....……………. and foremost
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Unit
Until My Dying Day
22 Read the article about suicide tourism in Switzerland and complete the gaps with the
right reference phrases.
and as if that were not enough
With that said
Now as foreign a concept as this is
Interestingly enough
It goes without saying that
When it comes to
Hard as it is to believe
Be that as it may
from a moral standpoint
To everyone’s utter amazement
Suicide Tourism
1…………….. Switzerland has become a hot spot for
suicide tourism. Most places in the world condemn
euthanasia for religious or political reasons.
2…………….., there is one country where assisted
suicide is perfectly legal and that’s Switzerland.
Currently, Switzerland has several organisations that
willingly accept candidates from other countries. One
of them has already assisted over a thousand people
in Zurich. The practice has been legal in Switzerland
since 1942.
3…………….., there are a few states in the USA that
legally allow physician-assisted suicide, including
Oregon, Washington and New Mexico, but
Switzerland is unique because it’s one of the few
countries with no national laws against it. As such, it
created a sort of suicide tourism industry where
people travel from all over the world with the intent
of ending their life.
4…………….. not everyone can choose to do it. All
patients undergo a thorough psychiatric evaluation to
make sure they are of sound mind, 5…………….. they
also must have a legitimate medical reason for
wanting to do it. A recent study published in a British
Journal of Medicine aims to ascertain exactly who is
partaking in suicide tourism and why.
A team of researchers looked at more than 600
cases of assisted suicide involving people from
different countries. The average age of someone
seeking assisted suicide was 69 years old ranging
from 23 years old all the way to 97 years old.
6…………….., women were found to be 40% more likely
to choose euthanasia than men. The cases involved
people from more than 30 different countries, but
two thirds of the patients came either from Germany
or the UK. So why were they seeking suicide?
10
Well, the laws in the US state that you must
have a terminal illness with a prognosis of less
than six months left, but it’s not like that in
Switzerland. 7…………….. the Swiss law it’s enough
to prove that you are not doing it for selfish
reasons but you’re doing it to relieve suffering
whether it’s physical, mental or both. In this study
the most common reasons for seeking suicide
were neurological diseases like Paralysis,
Parkinson’s disease, Motor Neurone Disease and
Multiple Sclerosis followed by diseases such as
cancers.
8…………….. for most of us, if you ignore the
religious implications, there is something that
seems wrong about denying someone the ability
to die with dignity if they are truly suffering from
an incurable illness. After all, we administer
euthanasia to our pets if they’re suffering, and
9…………….. that’s perhaps even more egregious
because animals can’t get consent.
In Switzerland the regular practice is that a
physician prepares a drug but the patient is the
one who administers it. For most patients that
drug is Sodium Pentobarbital. It’s typically used to
euthanise animals but it’s also often included in
the lethal injection cocktails. When injected in high
doses, it effectively slows down the brain function
almost immediately to the point where it stops,
and when your brain stops so does eventually
your heart.
10…………….., the topic of assisted suicide
remains highly controversial, and most countries
won’t make it legal any time soon.
Until My Dying Day
1
Unit
23 See the readers’ comments on the article that you have just read and choose the best word in
each to fill the gaps.
Joanne Cruz
My mom had terminal cancer and she suffered terribly at
the end. Although she chose to fight to the bitter end, I
would have supported her if she’d ……………..1 euthanasia to
end her suffering. She was in horrific agony and constantly
hallucinating. It comes down to the fact that my love for her
outweighed my selfish need to keep her. I feel that outlawing
euthanasia is immoral.
A. reneged
B. encouraged
C. pondered
D. reflected
Ryan Gillen
I’ve always found it interesting that in
many places where the death penalty
is legal, assisted suicide is not. To me
it’s …………….. 3 injustice against people
when the government can decide
when you should die.
A. magnanimous
B. contemptuous
C. fortuitous
D. egregious
Lance Verbose
For all of those who …………….. 2 support
assisted suicide I’d strongly recommend
that they check out the book “From
Incurable to Incredible” which tells the
stories of 27 people who were given a
terminal diagnosis but who survived and
lived a happy life many years later.
A. staunchly
B. equivocally
C. gloriously
D. seemingly
Lily Brown
Personally, I’d feel pretty awful if people were putting
their lives on hold and spending tons of time and money
on me just so I could lay around in …………….. 4 pain all
day. Also, if I wasn’t able to accomplish anything with my
life anymore anyway, and I wanted to lessen the burden
on others and end my own suffering, I don’t think it’s
anyone’s right to tell me I can’t.
A. transcendent
B. palpable
C. excruciating
D. despicable
Hans Muster
Even though I live in Switzerland, I do object to assisted suicide. Why do we want to play God,
when we are not? I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind who’d agree to help another person
die. We should all die a natural death no matter how …………….. 5 it may be.
A. vehement
B. ferocious
C. pusillanimous
D. agonising
24 Say whose viewpoint in Exercise 23 is closest to yours.
25 Go to page 97 to revise what you have learnt in this unit.
26 Watch the film “Me Before You” and exchange your views on the issues it broaches.
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