As someone who has eschewed the religious doctrine of my youth and who now lives a secular life, it’s often very interesting (and, I confess, occasionally amusing) to observe the different attitudes to the subject of death which abound among people of faith. Death, after all, is by their very nature, central to every religious doctrine (unless there’s one out there that doesn’t attempt to address the existence or nature of an afterlife, in which case pardon my ignorance), and it makes sense that the end of life is pretty darned central to the theology of religions which promise that our consciousness lives on after the physical body has stopped working.

Why, then, do so many English – speaking people of faith (or otherwise) find the subject of death to be abhorrent and even unspeakable? For that matter – let’s not keep this exclusively within the religious world - why do any of us in ‘western’ societies seem so squeamish about the one thing we can all expect - without exception? From an early age we all begin to understand that all life comes to an end, although exactly when each life ends is always unpredictable, so I find it surprising that the cultures within which I have lived seem so reluctant to accept it. This is so prevalent among the English – speaking world that we have invented (and I’m sure, continue to invent) ways of saying ‘death’ or ‘dead’ which avoid the use of either word, as if the words themselves are somehow tempting fate.

For reasons which make little sense to me, saying ‘dead’ or  ‘died’ or ‘die’ seems unacceptable these days. Perhaps the most frequently demonstrated example of this aversion is to be found in drama, where, repeatedly, doctors, police personnel, paramedics will avoid pronouncing a person dead and will instead, in response to the dead-laden question “Is she (or he, of course)…?” will typically mutely shake of the head, form a downcast expression and look away, or simply pull a sheet (always white) over the face of the corpse and press their lips together silently. If we’re really lucky, for emphasis the attending doctor/nurse/paramedic/butcher/baker/candlestick maker will solemnly pass their hands over the dead person’s face, somehow in the process making their eyelids close (just for the record, a corpse’s eyes tend to not remain closed unless they’re stitched).

Rarely will we hear verbal confirmation that a character has died; you won’t hear “Is she dead?”… Neither will you typically hear “I’m afraid…she’s dead.”. It’s really quite odd and a bit silly.

The underlying reason, I believe, lies in what is perhaps the oldest truth of all – that as sentient beings with the evolved power of reason, humans have for unknown millennia (who knows when the idea first formed in our ancestors’ brains?) feared death like no other animal fears death. We fear the ending of our lives, the loss of everyone and everything, a final closing of the door. Religions seek to deal with these fears by offering the prospect of different rewards (depending upon your chosen faith) in an everlasting magical after-life if we behave ourselves (although the ideas about what constitutes acceptable ‘goodness’ seem rather subjective). Still, verbally acknowledging the reality of death – at least in English-speaking societies – seems to be a lasting taboo.

As a result we have a lot of euphemisms for dying and death, and here are some examples:

• At room temperature

• Dirt nap

• Pushing up the daisies

• Passed...(over, on, away, etc)

• Deceased

• Ex-

• Stone dead

• Demised

• Ceased to be

• No more

• Expired

• Gone to meet their maker

• Stiff

• Bereft of life

• Resting in peace

• Off the twig

• Kicked the bucket

• Shuffled off the mortal coil

• Run down the curtain

• Joined the choir invisible

• That good night

• In a better place

• Six feet under

• Crossed over

• Crossed the bar

• Crossed the River Styx

• Wandering the Elysian Fields

• Paid Charon's fare

• Sleeping with the fishes

• Bought the farm

• asleep

• belly up

• bloodless

• buried

• cadaverous

• checked out

• cold

• cut off

• defunct

• departed

• done for

• erased

• extinct

• gone

• inanimate

• late

• lifeless

• liquidated

• mortified

• offed

• perished

• in repose

• rubbed out

• snuffed out

• wasted

• lost

• be taken

• bump off

• buy it

• cash in (or out)

• check out

• conk

• croak

• Dance the last dance

• eat it

• finished

• Gone into the west

• Kicked off

• Got a one-way ticket

• Popped off

• Snuffed

• Sprouted wings

• Succumbed

• No longer with us

• Dirt

• Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

• Return to the ground

• In Hell (or Heaven)

• With the ancestors

• Gathered to his people

• Give up the ghost

• In the grave

• Executed

• Wacked

• Terminated

• Put down

• "Going to the big ___(whatever) in the sky"

• Destroyed, As in "to destroy dogs"

• Worm food

• Fragged

• Buy a pine condo

• Go into the fertilizer business

• Become living-challenged

• Carked

• T.U./Toes up/tits up/tango uniform

• Get your wings

My personal favourite is ‘Living challenged’ (I love the twisted sardonic bite of it), closely followed by ‘Shuffled off this mortal coil.’ (almost entirely because it makes me almost sound like I am versed in Shakespeare). An unlisted example (I found this particular non-exhaustive list online somewhere but can’t remember where) which is also one of my preferred ones is ‘Popped his clogs’, although I also rather like ‘Run down the curtain’ for the daft imagery my mind creates to go along with it.

Absolutely  hateful phrases in this field include ‘Called home’ – which I simply despise for its patronising, sickly imposition of faith, ‘Gathered to…’  and ‘Gone to meet her maker.’, for the very same reason. Less antagonistic  phrases  - but still annoying – (after all I want to retain my status as a confirmed curmudgeon) include;  ‘Passed on.’, ‘Crossed over.’ and ‘In a better place’.

The instinctive defence for using all these terms would be, I suppose, that by so doing, we guard against hurting the feelings of others, against seeming insensitive or uncompassionate. I understand that and I sympathize with that intention (which moral or ethical person, after all, wants to cause needless pain?), but this is a self-serving monster which divorces much of society from the blunt reality that each of us is going to die and stay dead, whether we pay millions to have our heads frozen in chemicals or not. As a society it’s time that we grew up and began calling this particular thing what it simply is: death.

Some cultures embrace death as part of life; oddly enough they seem to include some of the oldest established cultures on earth, ironically situated in what we in the ‘civilised’ world consider to be less developed parts. Some cultures celebrate death and a number of cultures deal with it by making the ancestors part of the present through ritual and a variety of customs which honour and commemorate the dead as if they were still alive. What such cultures share is an ability to embrace death as a certainty, and to reward the ageing process with respect for wisdom gained through experience.

In the society that I have grown up within, ageing is demonised (I can’t help but think because it represents the slippery slope towards everyone’s ultimate fate)  and fought against as if it were not a natural process. Every death is regarded as a tragedy, despite the complete certainty of it for us all. Death in our society is so much a taboo that we are afraid to speak its name, whether or not our personal beliefs offer some crumbs of comfort about the finality of it. Isn’t that really a little bit immature of us? It will take some getting used to, but perhaps it’s past time for us to begin being honest with ourselves about the nature of life – and of course, death.