Humor in Unexpected Places – Part I: Euphemisms for Death

The Albany police blotter is not the only place I find humor.

My husband’s cousin, Dana, is in charge of a hospice program in Santa Barbara. You’d think that would be a terribly depressing occupation. But Dana has gone so far as to teach a course about how to look death in the face and laugh. Part of her admittedly semi-creepy obsession with death humor includes her collection of euphemisms for dying, which she e-mailed to all her relatives, just for fun. I was curious, so I Googled euphemisms for death and added to her list. Here are just some of the ones I found that I’ve grouped into loose categories.

Wishful thinking

asleep

the big nap

gone

left the building

resting in peace

slipped away quietly

got a one-way ticket

went to the lone couch of everlasting sleep

There’s the “better place” series

was called home

with the ancestors

with the angels

gone to Davy Jones’s locker

gone to meet one’s maker

gone to one’s just reward

gone to one’s last home

gone to one’s rest

gone to the happy hunting ground

gone to the last roundup

gone west

gone to that big (fill in your favorite) in the sky

Those that make use of various sports, game, or theater metaphors

a race well run

reached the finish line

cash in one’s chips

traded to the angels

final curtain call

PC versions

became living-challenged or living-impaired

immortality-challenged

tending towards a state of chemical equilibrium

Scientific

returned to dust

back to molecules

Several of them stress the underground aspect

six feet under

became a root inspector

bought a pine condo

checking out the grass from underneath

taking a dirt nap

pushing up daisies

go home feet first

riding the perma-pine

gone into the fertilizer business

picking turnips with a step-ladder

feeding the worms

In the horizontal phone booth

Some are more obvious

lifeless

no longer with us

ceased to breathe

at room temperature

is now stiff

ate his last pizza

(is) no more

Seem to be mob-influenced

sleeping with the fishes

rubbed out

terminated

executed

liquidated

offed

snuffed out

put in cement boots

A few treat the dead as inanimate objects

erased

permanently out of print

taken out of production

past his sell-by date

got stamped “return to sender”

There are those that are blunt

went belly up

ate it

cadaverous

stone dead

dead meat

deader than a doornail

deceased

defunct

demised

departed

checked out

croaked

cut off

done for

expired

extinct

finished

perished

stiff as a board

got bagged

wearing a toe tag

on the unable to breathe list

A few use mythical or literary references

crossed the River Styx

wandering the Elysian Fields

shuffled off this mortal coil

Then there’s the category I call: Where-did-that-come-from?

bit the dust

bought the farm

gave up the ghost

paid the bills of mortality

fallen off the perch

gathering the asphalt

popped their clogs

ended his/her earthly career

basted the formaldehyde turkey

Then there are those that perennially look on the bright side

out of his/her misery

sprouted wings

joined the majority

winning one for the reaper

decided that hell’s got a better HR policy than the office

gone to take his/her free kick at Hitler’s backside 

And my personal favorite:

kicked the oxygen habit