Comments on: Sunday round-up: snow fun at all!

By: Adjunctorium

Adjunctorium — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:54:09 +0000

I like “croaked over,” myself. “Passing away” is something you do quietly in your bed, at the end of a long life, preferably ushered along through a morphine-induced haze. Whitney Houston did not pass anything; she croaked over. We might even argue that she croaked herself over, but that wouldn’t be very respectful. I suppose.

Well said about our doughty leaders’ influence on the state of education as we see it today. Here in the Wild West, they continue the campaign: In addition to resurrecting a bill to allow concealed weapons in the classroom (deservedly vetoed at the end of the last session), one legislator has introduced a bill to ban the use of naughty words on the classroom (which naughty words remains undecided, but offend and you will be fired), and another proposes that no college, university or K-12 instructor shall be permitted to make a politically slanted or opinionated statement in the classroom.

I’m starting to study for my real estate license this spring.

By: N G

N G — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:49:41 +0000

Happy Valentine’s Day! Good day up here. The government is reducing post secondary student tuition by 30% this year to encourage more people to obtain higher ed.

http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/

Enjoy the day!

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:28:05 +0000

I first read truffula’s comment as “Myself, I plan to pass on into hummus.” HAHA! I like the green burial plans I’ve read about it, mostly because I’m cheap, but also because a winding sheet does better for the earth than embalming, encasing in a huge coffin, and then putting the lot into a cement vault.

I agree with Perpetua: grief sanitization is where it’s at. I’m sorry someone told you to get over your bereavement in such a crass fashion. Perhaps some are just terrified of their own powerful emotions, and so distance themselves from their own grief in this manner.

I think people sometimes make the mistake of seeing funerals or “life celebrations” as something for the dead rather than for the living. I really don’t care what anyone does or doesn’t do after my death–my family and friends will just have to do what makes sense for them. I’ll be beyond caring at that point, of course.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:26:38 +0000

I think “passed on” would bother me less if it didn’t take place in an overall culture of grief sanitization. As many people who are recently bereaved account, society barely allows a couple of weeks of sorrow and then it’s “What? You’re still upset about that?” (Actually thing that was actually said to me, many years ago.) (The only exception might be the loss of a child, in which case people would probably avoid you like the plague.) We don’t have funerals anymore we have “life celebrations”. Man, do I dislike that. When my great-aunt died, she refused even a memorial service. I respect her wishes, of course, but it also made me angry. People need to *mourn*. Laughter and good memories of course not incompatible with grief – far from it – but the American cult of happiness can hamper people’s ability to express and experience grief and loss. The bereaved frequently feel abandoned, isolated, silenced.

By: Tenured Radical

Tenured Radical — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:50:31 +0000

Re. Whitney: it seems likely that intoxicants were involved in her death, and my feeling is that people are trying to deflect attention from that.

By: truffula

truffula — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:19:59 +0000

As a regular reader of the newspaper Obituary section*, I can report that far more families use the phrase “passed away” than go on to suggest that their loved one “passed on” to something or somewhere else (Christian or otherwise). In my opinion, this is about gentleness and far be it from me to critique how others manage their grief. This of course has nothing to do with news reporting.

Myself, I plan to pass on into humus. Or fishes. Whatever is legal and has a small carbon footprint.

* It is also the only section I read regularly. Obits are interesting and somebody should take note of the many lives lived, it might as well be me.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:02:21 +0000

Strunk would, anyway; White was mid-20th century enough that he might have given you a reluctant pass on “passed.” Get Thee The Little Book, I always say. Journeyed forth has a kind of willful robustness to it, to me, anyway, whereas “passed” sort of connotes that somebody just misjudged the width of a narrow ledge on the Bright Angel Trail and tumbled forth into eternity.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:27:26 +0000

Interesting, Tom–I wondered if you might not have an opinion on this!

I’ve heard the expression used by African American, Latin@, and white people recently. To pick up on Susan’s point about the phrase expressing a particular Christian sensibility, from what I’ve seen and heard it may be more religiously-bound than racially or ethnically-bound. I certainly accept that my preference for “died” is probably linked to my secular world-view. (I don’t think there’s anywhere to which to “pass,” which is probably why the expression has never made sense to me.)

I still think that Strunk and White would urge “died” over “forth-ferde” and “passed away” alike.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:05:52 +0000

I hate to say it, Historiann, but 1100 years ago, it was commonplace in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to say “In this year, so-and-so ‘forth-ferde’” : i.e., ‘journeyed forth’. One might even translate quite precisely as ‘passed forth’ or ‘passed away.’ It’s an extremely old (and apparently useful) euphemism.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:57:55 +0000

I am with you on passed, though “passed”, as opposed to “passed away” is very much a usage i associate with my friends rsised in the Black church. And when I hear it from them, I know they know about death, but saying someone has passed turns the focus to the idea that they are going somewhere,

It’s only when it is other people –the not rich– that throwing money at problems doesn’t work. After all, elite school tuitions, according to the NYT, are pushing $50,000 a year, and those schools have huge endowments. Rich folks must think they are getting something for their money.