Listen to the author reading this blog post.
My first post on death and dying looked at softer, less direct ways of talking about this subject, for example saying that we ‘lose’ a person or that a person ‘passes away’ rather than saying they ‘die’. Today, I’m looking at idioms and phrases generally in this area, some of which are also gently euphemistic.
Instead of saying that someone is ‘dead’, we might say that they are no longer with us. A religious person may say that a dead person is now in a better place or has gone to a better place:
Here’s a photo of my grandma. Sadly, she’s no longer with us.
I’m comforted by the knowledge that he’s in a better place.
I know he’s gone to a better place.
The formal phrase depart this life, meaning ‘die’, is often seen on old gravestones:
Here lies John Smith, who departed this life on May 2nd, 1930.
Someone who makes the ultimate / supreme sacrifice or lays down their life, dies while doing something noble. This is often used of soldiers who die fighting for their country:
Today, we remember families whose loved ones have made the ultimate sacrifice.
They were prepared to lay down their lives for the cause of liberty.
Euphemisms such as the above phrases are one way of dealing with an upsetting subject. Another way of making an unpleasant topic more acceptable is to be funny, and there are several humorous idioms for ‘die’ and ‘dead’. A word of warning – humorous phrases such as these are only appropriate in some contexts!
Two humorous and informal idioms that mean ‘dead’ are pushing up (the) daisies and six feet under:
I’ll be pushing up the daisies long before any of this happens.
You can’t spend your money when you’re six feet under!
Two similarly humorous idioms meaning ‘die’ are kick the bucket and, in UK English, pop your clogs:
In the fifth act of the play, he finally kicks the bucket.
I don’t want people making a big fuss when I pop my clogs.
Two shorter informal phrases with the same meaning are (UK) snuff it and (US) kick off:
Ten minutes into the movie, he snuffs it.
I didn’t know he’d kicked off.
I’ll finish this post with an idiom, originally from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, that is literary and often humorous in tone. To shuffle off this mortal coil is to die:
I certainly don’t have any plans to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet.
That concludes my Talking about Death two-part post. I hope you’ve learned a phrase or two.