My favorite along these lines was from Corner Gas:
Hank: Emma. Can I ask you for some advice?
Emma: Can’t you ask your own mother?
Hank: You know she’s gone on to a better place.
Emma (snarkily): They have phones in Saskatoon.
rockwhisperersays
I fiercely despise the euphemisms. I was comfortable saying “My dad died in June of 2006” from about July of 2006. Did I miss him? Like you wouldn’t believe, and finally got some therapy to deal with that loss. I look out into my back yard at the roses we planted together in 2005, and sometimes the loss is still momentarily painful. But my dad is dead. He didn’t ‘pass away’, he didn’t ‘travel to some better place’, he DIED. Euphemisms deny the reality of the loss and pain. They exist to browbeat those who have experienced loss into shutting up about it, so everyone else can get on with their lives and ignore the suffering of the bereaved.
My dad died. Full stop. He was my best friend and a blessing to me, and I can mostly enjoy remembering him now. He still died.
What really gets me is the latest: that somebody “passed”. It used to be (not that long ago) that somebody “passed away”, but even that wasn’t euphemistic enough, reminding people that the deceased was “away”. Like rockwhisperer, I use the word “died”.
Rob Grigjanissays
A calls his brother B, who lives far from the family home.
A: The cat died.
B: Jesus, mate, couldn’t you break the news more gently? Something like “the cat crawled onto the roof…[followed by a long complicated story ending with moggie’s demise]”.
A: OK.
My favorite along these lines was from Corner Gas:
Hank: Emma. Can I ask you for some advice?
Emma: Can’t you ask your own mother?
Hank: You know she’s gone on to a better place.
Emma (snarkily): They have phones in Saskatoon.
I fiercely despise the euphemisms. I was comfortable saying “My dad died in June of 2006” from about July of 2006. Did I miss him? Like you wouldn’t believe, and finally got some therapy to deal with that loss. I look out into my back yard at the roses we planted together in 2005, and sometimes the loss is still momentarily painful. But my dad is dead. He didn’t ‘pass away’, he didn’t ‘travel to some better place’, he DIED. Euphemisms deny the reality of the loss and pain. They exist to browbeat those who have experienced loss into shutting up about it, so everyone else can get on with their lives and ignore the suffering of the bereaved.
My dad died. Full stop. He was my best friend and a blessing to me, and I can mostly enjoy remembering him now. He still died.
What really gets me is the latest: that somebody “passed”. It used to be (not that long ago) that somebody “passed away”, but even that wasn’t euphemistic enough, reminding people that the deceased was “away”. Like rockwhisperer, I use the word “died”.
A calls his brother B, who lives far from the family home.
A: The cat died.
B: Jesus, mate, couldn’t you break the news more gently? Something like “the cat crawled onto the roof…[followed by a long complicated story ending with moggie’s demise]”.
A: OK.
Some time later;
A: Mum crawled onto the roof…