Oh I forgot to address the widow/widower thing. First the disclaimer: I am not an English professor, nor a teacher. But I have pondered the question myself. Here's what I've come up with, but I have no authority to say that it is the *correct* answer. My answer to your either/or question is: Yes. According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/widowered "Definition of WIDOWERED : made a widower <his widowered father — William Humphrey>" "This word doesn't usually appear in our free dictionary, but the definition from our premium Unabridged Dictionary is offered here on a limited basis. Note that some information is displayed differently in the Unabridged." In common usage, we (in the U.S.) don't usually use the word "widowered" (it drives spell checkers crazy, too), but evidently it is a word. Roy On 3/26/2015 7:47 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) via wrote: > There are times when I know something happened before a date: I > sometimes wonder how precise I should be with the date. For example, say > someone is known, on a specific date, to be a widow(er): obviously, the > DOD of the spouse is BEF(ore) that date. But do I say BEF ddmmyyyy? > That's strictly _correct_, and on the whole is what I do, but some > people seeing it might think it means they died quite close to it. > > I was just wondering how others express the date when they use BEEF. > > (Side idle thought: when the husband dies first, the wife is widowed, > becoming a widow. When the wife dies first, the husband becomes a > widower - so is he widowed, or widowered?)