No-one ‘dies’ now euphemisms are everywhere – from restrooms to market corrections – Stuff.co.nz

OPINION: Euphemisms are everywhere. Someone who is tired and emotional is drunk. In real estate parlance a Great first step on the property ladder! or a Great first home! is probably a hovel, especially in Auckland.

Politicians and economists resort to them all the time. A market correction sounds like a price being changed at the greengrocers but it actually describes a catastrophic price collapse in the share or property markets. Lower socio-economic groups is a euphemism for poor people.

Euphemisms usually have more words, or at least more syllables, than the basic concrete (usually Anglo-Saxon derived) word which everyone can understand instantly, without having to translate it in their heads. The act of translation (the euphemisers hope) distances us from the concepts that are being described and simultaneously hidden.

The best test for a euphemism is: Do you have to translate the phrase youve just heard into something more concrete - something you can instantly relate to. So when someone asks to be directed to a restroom I know shes not planning to have forty winks. If someone breaks wind hes not building a shelter. When your doctor asks you for a stool sample, dont bring a seat from your breakfast bar.

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Euphemisms are common when it comes to bodily functions.

Euphemisms are often associated with anything where someone wants to gild the lily (a euphemism for lying), especially bodily functions, sex (which I suppose is a bodily function) and death. These days especially death.

In New Zealand, until recently, people used to die. My grandparents died, and so did my father, or thats what people said at the funerals. But when Mum died a couple of years back, everyone, from the nurse at the hospital, to most giving their commiserations at the funeral, expressed their regret at her passing away, or worse, her passing.

Which makes it sound like she either gave a cheery wave on her way to the shops, or she was excreted.

The same P word was used instead of the D word at a friends funeral recently. I used the D word and was treated, by one person, as if Id sworn. I should have spared the familys feelings, apparently.

Excuse me?

The deceased was lying in his casket. (A euphemism for coffin. In the old days, you could store knick-knacks or jewellery in those.) He, in the slightly adapted words of the Monty Python parrot sketch, was An ex-person. His metabolic processes are now history! He wasnt resting.

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People used to talk about dying, Lyall McFarlane writes, but now we talk about people passing away.

My use of the non-euphemistic word for his familys loss was the least of their worries.

Now funeral celebrants and most attendees treat THAT word like Harry Potter did uttering the name of Lord Voldemort - something dire will happen if one utters its name. As if they might catch their deaths.

I first noticed this trend in this part of the world in 2017, after the drowning of a Kiwi family in the New South Wales floods. An Aussie media outlet said they had passed away. A few months later, comic great John Clarke was reported as passed away on a bush walk. He died of a heart attack.

None of these deaths was peaceful. They were tragically sudden. Sometimes its best to acknowledge a situations gravity by calling a spade a spade.

Old Australian euphemisms for the Great Divide, like, Fell off ones perch, or, Did a bit of a perish, at least had the benefit of understated ironic wit. Not that Im advocating their use in formal settings.

Australians are oh so Americanised, I said to myself, That pulling of punches wont happen here.

Wrong.

Last year, a TV reporter stood in front of a car wreck and told the camera that the driver had passed away, while fleeing police. Judging by the vehicles state, the driver didnt drift off to the Elysian Fields.

I hope the reporters producer had a word with her, and that it wasnt a preview of things to come.

Even in more prosaic passings away, whats wrong with calling them the deaths they are? Most of our media are still telling it like it is, but for how long?

Like most trends adopted here, this development came from America the home of restrooms and stools.

Ive trolled through their media and apart from quality papers, like the New York Times, and traditional broadcast media, they just dont say good old d.e.a.t.h.

For a nation with such a high proportion of professed Christians, it's odd that they seem to feel the need to hide from the fact that, sure-as-shootin, theyre all going to die. Mind you, previously theyve done sterling work in pulling the wool over their eyes that they all have to pee and poo.

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Psychology says that trying not to think of something just makes us think about it more.

There are dozens of sociological and psychological texts devoted to The American Denial of Death.

Ive read them so you dont have to. To sum up, its derived from a culture of relentlessly forced optimism. The reasoning seems to be Sure, every other person in history has died. Losers! But Im gonna be positive and BEAT this thing!

To take any other position would deny theyre not complete masters of their own manifest destiny.

But none of us entirely are.

Treating death as on a par with the other bodily functions we sweep under the collective carpet, wont fend it off. Psychology says that consciously trying NOT to think of something just makes us think about it more. Its proper shrink name is Ironic Process Theory, but its more commonly known as The Pink Elephant Effect. I once was a guinea pig in one of these thought experiments.

When told by brain-care specialists, Whatever you do, dont think of pink elephants! the very act of thought-suppression made rose coloured pachyderms an unshakeable psyche worm. Like the unwanted earworm suffered when I hear Crazy Frog. Its far better to let a thought flit in and out of consciousness. Ditto with death.

So it might be better to consciously accept mortality, but not dwell on it by being in constant denial.

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No-one 'dies' now euphemisms are everywhere - from restrooms to market corrections - Stuff.co.nz