“….being treated as unexplained”

[sausagetown]

Sorry for the slightly morbid topic!

You know how, when newsreaders report that a body has been found, they say, “…The death is being treated as unexplained”?

Is it only I who finds this phrase a bit sinister? Surely if they don’t know how it happened, it IS unexplained, not just treated as such, and if it is being “treated as unexplained” even though they actually do have an explanation, it suggests that the explanation is awful and must be kept secret.

It means they can’t yet tell between at least any two out of (probably);

suicide
accident
natural causes
homicide

I don’t see it as particularly sinister. (Police ‘treating it as murder’ often sounds worse to me, though I suppose that’s really only because you can’t always exclude manslaughter early on)

But why don't they say something like, "The cause of death is not yet known"?

It should be 'treated as inexplicable.'

'Treated as inexplicable' would mean they think it can't ever be explained, not just that they haven't yet worked out the cause of death.