BS: Passes

Subject: BS: Passes
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 09:44 AM

Is it just me or does anyone else get really annoyed by the current use of the word passes to say that someone had died? And what makes it worse in my eyes is that they'll then say so-and-so died yesterday at....

Please, STOP IT!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Kweku
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 09:50 AM

I believe that what they are trying to say is that the person has moved to the next planet(hades/hell/pit of fire/bottomless pit).

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 10:08 AM

Doesn't bother me a bit. Whatever makes things easier for those who are oleft to mourn.

"Tombstones cheer the living,
They're no use to the dead."

Can't recall the writer, but thems true words.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 10:09 AM

I hate it when people use euphemisms for the plain fact of life of popping ones clogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Dave Swan
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 10:31 AM

He didn't pass...he FAILED! He's dead. Irritates the hell out of me too.

D

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: GUEST,mack/misophist
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 10:42 AM

A lot of people find it hard to say 'died', or imagine that others find it painful to hear. Whatever works, works.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Becca72
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:30 AM

A friend of mine uses the term "locked up and fell off"..is that better?

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:44 AM

Here's more to get your BP up there . . . .

And the next time you see someone who is plastered, think of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:47 AM

Oh, no!! He's DEANIMATED!

That's a wonderful site, Peace.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:47 AM

Lots of useful euphemisms here.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:49 AM

Dang it, you beat me to it peace - "fools seldom differ."

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:51 AM

Speaking of 'failing' reminds me of what I once told my mother. I said, "When I think of all the people in this world who have died, I think that if they could stand it, so can I. And then I think: but they couldn't stand it - it killed them."

And my mother said. Yes, I see your dilemma.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 12:27 PM

I though passed on, in this context, was not a new phrase at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 12:37 PM

She's on the roof . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 01:19 PM

The word PASS is useful when employed in poker games and when referring to kidney stones.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 01:24 PM

Or "head 'em off at the".

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: JennyO
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 01:48 PM

And who could forget the dead parrot sketch!

Mr. Praline: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 02:16 PM

"Passed on" is has been around for awhile. "Passed over", on the other hand, always makes me think of someone who either flunked third grade or didn't get promoted to the next rank.

I've always kinda like "vitality challenged" or "formerly living."

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 02:18 PM

"passed" is optimistic.."died" is final and accepting.

either is "gone"

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 03:50 PM

"Croaked" works for me, as does "bought the farm" and others. But I really prefer "died" and "dead."

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 02:30 AM

He's pining for the fiords,
He's not pining he's bleedin dead.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: John O'L
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 02:40 AM

He's dropped off the twig. He's carked it. He's a goner.

Dead? How can you be so vulgar?

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 03:57 PM

Like wasted, snuffed, and worm food?

Or pushing up daisies or looking at grassroots?

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Azizi
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 05:28 PM

Quarcoo, being from Ghana you might not be aware that the English colloquial expression "pass on" or "pass over" is usually not used to mean that the person went to hell.

I think that alot of folks don't like to even mention the word "death" and so they use a substitute phrase "pass on". Some older people [and maybe people who aren't that old]are so reluctant to talk about their own death that they will use phrases like "if something happens to me" {note that they don't say "when", they say "if". For instance, a relative of mine shared with me that "If something happens to me, I stored money in thus and so place in my house. There is also a reluctance, no even more than that an aversion to letting people know what they want done at their funeral service.

African American hip-hop generations {actually there are at least two of these generations now, right?} have a saying called "burning bread". Probably based on the belief that words have power, if someone warns a person not to do something-say don't drive too fast because you could get into a car accident, that person addressed, might say "Don't burn bread on me". I have no idea where this saying came from. But I'm wondering if the aversion to mentioning the word "death" is related to the power of words. If you mention the word death, that directs Death's attention to you....

Another phrase I've heard mostly {Christian] church going African Americans use to refer to someone who died is "gone to glory". And lately, I've noticed that church funeral services have been referred to as "Home Coming for _____". This is written on the funeral notices in newspapers and the funeral programs you receive etc.
Of course, that phrase comes from the fact that heaven is considered the real home for all people {notice again no reference to hell}.

And since at least the late 20th century, I've heard Afro-centric African Americans say that someone who died has "gone to join the ancestors".

And I still hear "kicked the bucket" euphemism for someone dying. But you definitely would not hear that used in formal settings.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Azizi
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 05:49 PM

Somewhat off topic-but since I noted other examples of the use of the word 'pass':

Speaking of Black people, if someone says "She's passing", that has nothing to do with dying. "Passing" is a shortened form of the phrase "Passing for White". This refers to a person who has some known Black ancestry [maybe way back when or maybe one of their birth parents]and/but the person looks as if he or she is White. That person might make a conscious decision to 'pretend' to be White in order to get a job or that person might consciously chose to reject his or her Black relatives and 'pass on into the White race". Or that person might not choose to do either of these things, and the person who says that the person is 'passing' might be completely mistaken.

Sometimes people who 'look White' aren't consciously 'trying to pass', but they don't go around parading their Black identity. I'm speaking here of people who identify themselves as Black because that is how they were raised culturally, or because they have some Black ancestry and-though they may not have been raised "Black"
[due to transracial adoption or being raised by a White birthparent or for other reasons], at some point they consciously choose to consider themselves Black. And I knew a very light skinned Black man who mad a point of always wearing a kufi and African clothing so that people 'got' that he's Black.

Race sure as heck complicates things....

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jun 06 - 06:53 PM

Sure does, Azizi. It sure does.

This is religion, not race, but: when I set tombstones, years ago, the only cemetery I ever received a bad feeling in was a Jewish cemetery. The feeling was "Go away! Do what you came to do and go away! You don't belong here!" My brother, who followed me in the job, felt the same thing there.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 04:51 AM

Aziz - a Jamaican colleague uses the phrase 'dallied' to describe her pale skin, as somewhere back in her ancestry, one of her family 'dallied wi' a white man'.

I can cope with 'passed on', or 'passed over', but 'passes/passed' just makes me think 'Exams? Pregnancy test? Wind?'

My mother, telling my sister and I of our brothers death in an accident, said 'You won't see your brother no more'... which made me (at 9yrs old) think he'd left home. I've always prefered to use the proper words for the proper things because of that.


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: open mike
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 06:05 AM

is it also offensive to you to hear the term "passed away"?

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:21 AM

That doesn't bother me, probably because I've heard it all my life.

When my mother was being buried I was standing by the grave, holding the hand of my 4-year-old nephew (we don't believe in isolating the kids from the REAL facts of life). Suddenly John turned to me and asked "Why are they putting her in that hole??"

"Because," I responded, "we can't keep her in the living room."

That satisfied him until he was older and understood.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: JennieG
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 01:53 AM

Someone I was working with, years ago, was unexpectedly widowed. One of the office workers said something to him like "I'm sorry to hear that Margaret passed away" to which he snapped "she hasn't passed away, she's dead!"

He was known for being blunt to the point of rudeness occasionally.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 05:47 AM

I don't find "passed on" anywhere near as bad as "passes". I suppose because "passed on" is a euphemism that, to me anyway, is associated soley with death in reference to a person. Passes is just too vague.

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Rman
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 06:08 AM

I watched the abridged version of Marvin Gaye's musical/family history last night - Speaking of his demise, one of his aquaintances said ;-

He's "gone to glory"

Very warm saying I thought, particularly as his music lives on...

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 10:42 AM

brahn bread

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 10:51 AM

Rapaire:

Wonderful answer.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:32 AM

How about unplugged? Or "Now sharing vital organs?" Works in certain situations........

Timely thread. Karen is currently in Atlanta to "say goodbye" to her mother (posted here a few times as "Maw-in-Law") who is on life support and brain dead after a fall down in the islands. She was life-flighted to Atlanta but too late. Her organs will be donated. Karen and her two sisters are now at the hospital and after they leave the machines will be turned off.

Patricia Harmon Wyatt. Her life was filled with peaks and valleys and her highs were extreme as were her lows. I hope its all smooth for her now. We rarely got along and she would be on and off with her three girls, none of whom would consider her a great Mom. But for the past 10 years she has prospered and been loved as a Nanny in Atlanta, working for some of the wealthiest and highest rollers in a town filled with them.

She and Karen hadn't spoken in 4 years until a few weeks ago when for some reason she tried to open the channel up which Karen did. They had several conversations the past few weeks which will help Karen some now.   Pat had a way or re-writing history to what suited her and a way of making you believe it if you weren't on guard. Anyway, its all past now.......I hope the rest of her journey is peaceful.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Metchosin
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:35 AM

Which reminds me of something my uncle said....He asked his boss if he could have time off to attend his brother-in-law's funeral. His boss said, "Oh, did Fred die?" To which my uncle replied, "No, we just bury him once in awhile."

Subject: RE: BS: Passes
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:55 AM

You are a wise man, Spaw.