Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse is dead. The British songstress was 27. While in recent years, Winehouse was known for her tabloid appearances and rather disheveled states, in 2008 Winehouse won five Grammys including  best new artist; her single “Rehab” won song and record of the year along with best pop vocal performance; and Back to Black was named best pop vocal album. Officials at U.S. embassy in London had denied her application to attend the 2008 Grammys, finally relenting just two days for the show. Travel logistics proved impossible for the singer, so she delivered her performance live from a rehearsal studio.

Details of her death are sketchy, but Winehouse had a notorious drug and alcohol habit. A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed to the BBC

that a 27-year-old woman had died in Camden and that the cause of death was as yet unexplained.

Despite her hit single protesting

I won’t go to rehab, no no no

Winehouse had recently spent time in a London area drug and alcohol rehab facility, and had been told not to drink.

Daily Telegraph rock critic Neil McCormick told the BBC that Winehouse

had appeared focused when giving an “incredible performance” for a recent studio recording of a duet with Tony Bennett. “It’s deeply sad. It’s the most completely tragic waste of talent that I can remember.”

Winehouse canceled her comeback tour after the first show in June when she appeared onstage in Serbia, apparently too intoxicated to perform.

Winehouse divorced her husband Blake Clive-Felderwho spent time in prison in 2009.  Clive-Felder’s second wife Sarah Aspin told The Sun earlier this month that Winehouse

needs to keep her hands off him. He is mine and we are a family now. I’ve had enough of her thinking she can click her fingers and get him back whenever she wants. She phones him when she is really out of it and her texts are even signed off ‘your wife’.

Among those weighing in on Twitter: Kelly Osbourne and Sarah Brown wife of Britain’s former prime minister.

Years ago when I was doing spoken word, I had schtick where I’d read a list of alphabetized nouns  from a dictionary of slang and euphemism, always beginning with “ace of spades” and ending with “yeast biscuit, you know what, yum yum.” I’d just randomly scan the synonyms and just toss them out with appropriate vocal inflections and pauses. It was fun to see how long it took the audience to catch on.

Included often were such terms as

Berkeley hunt, Bluebeard’s closet, center of attraction, conundrum, divine monosyllable, Eve’s custom house, eye that weeps most when best pleased, fiddle, fie-for-shame, gallimaufrey, generating place, grove of Eglantine,  half-moon, hive, Irish fortune, ivory gate,  Jacob’s ladder, ,jing-jang,  keystone of love, leading article, limbo, love’s pavilion, man-trap, marble arch, mouth that says no words about it, nick-nack, nonny-nonny, oracle, oyster, palace of pleasure, plum tree, purse, quid, quiff, quim, rest and be thankful, rufus, skin the pizzle, star, swallow, target, tool chest, treasure, tunnel, undertaker, vacuum, valve, Venus’ honeypot, what, where uncle’s doodle goes, whim-wham, workshop…

Well, Mooncup, an alternative to tampons and other such items now has a website where ladies–and one presumes gentlemen–can leave their fave names for lady parts, many of which are far more modern than the nouns I used to articulate: “Downtown dining and entertainment district” seems very popular.

Amy Winehouse contributed one. I don’t think anyone wants to go there.