It's not "passed" or "passed away", it's "died"

[SherlockHolmes]

So sick of this euphemism being used everywhere. It's not factual - no one has passed anywhere, they're dead.

I get it if it's someone close to you and you can't bring yourself to actually mention death, but it's being used in news reports etc. Utterly ridiculous.

Isn’t passed away/ passed over derived from passing over to the other side - ie heaven?

At least saying died doesn’t have any religious connotations.

My uncle died and at a gathering a family friend of my parents was chatting to my aunty, my aunty told family friend "I lost my husband" and the family friend responded "where did you lose him to" 🤣

I have birds on the brain so may start referring to dropping off one’s perch / ex-parroting.

Never realised such a bland expression as “passed away” had the power to spontaneously combust my enemies. 😈

You don't need to 'get' anything. It's 100% not your business what terminology other people use. I am baffled at the amount of posters who are so angry and bothered that some people say 'passed away' instead of 'dead.' Why are you so invested in what other people say? Maybe get some hobbies? Do some volunteering? Get out a bit more? Seems you are spending too much time concerned about what other people do - most who you have nothing to do with.

Seriously, you - and all the others berating people saying 'passed away;' get over yourself! As has been said, people berating and mocking people (who have been bereaved) like this is incredibly cruel. And who do you think you are telling people what they can and cannot say?! As a few posters have said, it is affecting you not one single jot!

I will 100% ALWAYS say 'passed away' in future, now I know how much it pisses some people off! I bet the people dissing people who say this wouldn't dare say it to them in real life!

@MollyMaidsRightArm If you don’t like “forrin” imports, you’d better adapt your language extensively then. Think of how many French words have infiltrated the English language- and don’t use the word “shampoo”, it’s derived from Hindi.

“Gotten” is Old English, btw, your ancestors would have used the term. But surprise, surprise, the English language has changed over the centuries.

Maybe just let people choose their own words that give them the most comfort when they're dealing with the death of a loved one.

Was she serious?

If yes, it must have been a eureka moment for the friend’s husband when the penny finally dropped that he was married to a dick.

"unalived" is way to get round social media filters

"Passed" is term people use, who believe their loved one has passed to a better realm - I wouldn't dream of taking comfort from grieving people regardless of my beliefs

Your family friend is a truly nasty person. They think they're so clever, but they aren't; just nasty.

Your family friend sounds like an arsehole.

Me too. If I hear it on the radio or TV, I always correct them.

That's because Catholics, like most religious believers, believe in a (non-existent) afterlife, and are therefore happy to use "died" and "death" as euphemisms for what has really happened - the person has gone forever, i.e., passed away.

In essence - yes - you’re right. But Dead/Died seem so brutal,final, and hard to take. Grief needs a bit of gentleness sometimes.

What a cruel, heartless thing for him to say, @MrsCrimbleCrumble. Literally mocking someone whose husband had died - what a prince!

The "Ooh, I hate gotten - it's an Americanism, not British" threads seem to come along semi-regularly.

Invariably started by (native English-speaking) British people who apparently don't have much knowledge of their own language.

I will continue saying to relatives their loved ones have passed away too.

I hate the term 'loved one' as well. Sometimes the person wasn't loved, they just happened to be a relative.

She's not a dick, just not very bright, Doesn't make her a dick.

That's awful.
And when it happens, when the most beloved person in your life is dead, you find out exactly what the word 'loss' means. 'Lost' is a true word. I was shocked at the instinct to search for them. I never expected that. It is the most fundamental, catastrophic loss.

Where does the post say it was a man?
Cross posted - the nasty/tone deaf friend was a woman.

It’s better than sleeping or with the angels

The family friend is a woman (i know that doesn't make a difference) and didn't know my uncle had died. My uncle had been dead for a while when this happened. The family friend thought my aunty meant, she'd lost him at the party.
She was horrified when she realised my aunty meant he'd died.

Try listening to the actual words - passed away- these words are extremely final, honest, not gentle at all.

The decision that "passed away" is more "gentle" than died, when died and death were historically used by traditions that believed in life after death, is a little naive.

"Passed away" accepts that when a person has died, they are gone, and that's the end of it.

Passed/passed away do make me cringe a bit instinctively.
But I also wouldn't presume to tell anyone going through a bereavement how to talk about it.

"Passed" sounds American to me, but I can remember "passed away" in the 1960s.

Anyway, all euphemisms end up being as "harsh" as the original word. In some cases they go full circle (e.g., "queer", or various racial epithets that the group in question appropriates for itself). "Toilet" and "lavatory" are both euphemisms, but Americans can't bring themselves to use either ("If I don't call it the bathroom. everyone will know what I'm going to do there!") - but I'm old enough to remember British people calling it the cloakroom or the washroom, the latter still being standard in Canada and India.

So give it 30–40 years and "passed [away]" will be a terrible thing to say. And maybe the Dead Pride Movement will campaign for "Kicked the bucket" to become the standard usage.