The words we use when we talk about death have always changed over time. For instance, who calls a body a cadaver these days? Few would entertain saying that an unwell person looked cadaverous. The word corpse has, likewise, died a death.
As an older person, comfortable to be called a pensioner, I am perhaps not best suited to writing on this subject. When I was given my leukaemia diagnosis by my consultant, she said that if I was going to have cancer then this was probably the best one to have. Other people told this have become very upset, considering such language as insensitive. Having worked in bereavement for 45 years, I understand how talking about illness and death is like treading on eggshells. It is so easy to put a foot wrong.
When I began work in 1961, people died, and people said so. Nonetheless, few people spoke about death and the conventions were very strong. Everybody wore black at funerals and people stood still when a hearse passed. Nobody questioned the rituals. Some 25 years later, whilst showing different coffin options to a woman whose partner had just died, she sensed my disquiet at whether to start at the cheaper end first, or last. She said, very pointedly, “Ken, he’s dead!” That put me in my place.
In similar vein, an item in a newspaper recently quoting a minister upset that nobody talks of a death these days, rather than ‘they have passed’ or ‘their passing’. The minister preferred to call a spade a spade. Indeed, even the newspaper’s style guide stated that people die, and writers must say so. However, most people don’t. Dare I say that, inwardly at least, I smiled when a woman told me, ‘I have just lost my mother’. As a mountain lover, being lost is highly embarrassing, suggestive that you could not read a map. Lost is not dead unless you fall over an unseen cliff.
That people invent new language for death does not surprise me. Monumental masons have done this for hundreds of years. For instance, in old cemeteries you can identify specific Victorian memorial masons by the comments inscribed on memorials. Some state that the deceased has ‘passed over to the other side’. Perhaps the bereaved was lost for words so allowed the mason to suggest what to inscribe, and it becomes repeated. This is also obvious when you read obituaries in newspapers, where approved language has been, perhaps overtly, forced on those wanting to submit text. This formulaic approach takes much of the colour out of a person’s life in the obit. These days, of course, young people try to place fake obituaries in newspapers. This sick joke is rarely appreciated by the non-deceased. Consequently, newspaper obits are readily accepted from bone fide funeral directors but not from the public, unless they show clear evidence of an actual death.
Obits have also changed in themselves. When I wrote my book “R.I.P. Off! Or The British Way of Death” I stated that they were full of cliches but empty of truth. No wife beaters or drunks ever died. You will notice that men are so often given a notable record of work tributes, with women rarely called a housewife and never a cleaner or carer. Status rears its ugly head in obits, more especially in the posh papers. However, the request in obits not to send wreaths and flowers but to send donations to charities, is a welcome humanitarian change.
The minister in charge of churchyards have often found themselves in hot water, not least in the local press. Proper language has always been preferred by the church, especially inscriptions on memorials. For a long period, there was total opposition to inscribing dad, mum, gramps, or grannie. I have no idea whether this continues today. For certain, public cemeteries have always been much more relaxed over what is inscribed on headstones. “Dentist, now filling his last cavity”, is one that I recall.
A very recent change has been in holding a ‘memorial’ instead of a ‘memorial service’. This may have arisen as people become more secular. Both crematoria and natural burial sites now prefer to call their chapel the celebrants hall. This reflects the fact that today most funeral services are taken by a celebrant rather than an ordained minister. Words that reflect a religious affiliation, so dominant for perhaps 1200 years, are now fading away.
It is not that people are necessarily less religious. It is more that people utilise religion in an entirely new way. During my early years at work, ministers were often adamant that the funeral service was all about God and not about the deceased. Modern services have reversed that. People will claim to be secular or that they have no religion and then say that they believe in an afterlife. We will meet again but paradise is a new place, known only to them. Few mention burning in hell, and purgatory is known only to Catholics, if at all.
However, cryogenics did create a kind of purgatory some decades ago. The Registration Service decided that if you were to be frozen in liquid nitrogen, and later revitalised, then they needed a deferred death option. As it is, the cryogenics has been killed off due to the phenomenal cost.
Death professionals are aware of language sensitivity and do discuss it. However, government is intransigent, not least the legal eagles. The law, it appears, must call a spade a spade. The law is structured around the disposal of the dead. That word disposal is not liked, and few people will use it today. The Registrars Certificate is rarely called the Disposal Certificate, as it was for decades.
The language of death will continue to change because social structures change. The wishes of the deceased are in the hands of the person who arranges the funeral. I only hope that whoever arranges mine will ensure that I am kicking up the daises.
Article by Ken West
The Stonehenge Pensioner
