Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly I like the"dead" part in deadline. When someone comes with one, the first question should be "who's dead after that line ?". If no one actually dies, it's not a deadline, just a target release date.
Shouldn't that be just "will someone actually die" rather than "who"? Or is it that your commitment to the deadline would really depend on the identity of the particular individual who's about to die?
I actually think precision helps.
"someone will die" is hard to act on, "XXXX amount spent on this XMas campaign will be lost and our partner X will go under" is a lot more valuable information, and potentially helps to adjust priorities too make X whole if other parts need to be sacrificed.