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.

But why? Surely you would just say something like "I'm sorry to hear that" or similar? Apart from being able to sidestep the phrase that you personally hate whilst respecting their choice to use it, that sounds far more natural.

Your way reminds me of the old hated reading comprehension that we had to do at school. It would say something like 'Janet has her breakfast at 7:30am every day. When does Janet have her breakfast every day?'... and you weren't allowed to answer naturally and say "7:30am" - it had to be "Janet has her breakfast at 7:30am every day", otherwise it would be marked wrong.

Hate the terms 'passed away' or 'passed' .The death of a loved one is hard and brutal and no flowery term will change that !
I work in a hospital and have noticed more and more hcp's using the terms they even announced on our intranet the 'passing of Queen Elizabeth' which really boiled my piss !
My understanding is that there is also no direct translation for 'passed away' or ' passed' into other languages, can you imagine the distress and confusion it could cause to relatives whom English isnt their first language if they are being told about a unexpected death of their loved one ? Passed Their tests ? Passed a bowel movement passed urine....

I actulky thought that unalived was some kind of weird joke the first time I saw it and I keep seeing it crop up, do people really use it in day to day life?

Also a hard agree with died.

I'd have thought that if was left up to the pp she'd have said something like"just to let you know, so it's not awkward when we meet, my mum died in July"
There's no reason to assume that she'd be as abrupt as you want to think.

What a strange remark.

You sound really exercised about this. Why does it bother you so much.

Unalived originated on TikTok because the word suicide was banned.

When she said she would use the words died or death in response to someone saying “X has passed away”, I think @Internaut would be correcting their choice of words, @Butchyrestingface. They will have used the term that is least painful for them, and she will deliberately use the blunter words, because she thinks she is right and they are wrong.

Surely it is more thoughtful and empathetic to use the terms the bereaved person is using, rather than trying to make a point about euphemisms.

If you are telling someone about a death ie factually notifying someone about a death, I agree died is the most suitable term. However when sympatising with someone who is bereaved I would prefer to use terms like I'm sorry for your loss, or I'm sorry your Mam passed away. My bil died young and my MIL & FIL always says we lost 'John', over 'John' died. They would say died in the context of when John died we did x. Different strokes for different folks!! I wouldn't correct or be annoyed someone for using a term I wouldn't use myself.

Not rtft so maybe one or more people have said this but "crossing the bar" comes from Tennyson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45321/crossing-the-bar

My honorary grandad used to take me sailing and to leave the river and get out into the sea we had to cross the (sand) bar every time, a physical rite of passage. Now and then he'd time it a bit close as the tide went out and we'd literally get lifted across it wave by wave, bumping against the sand.

Tennyson used it as a metaphor for dying.

It's a weird thing to get het up about. I feel everyone would be better off if they focused on each other's intentions rather than policing words (in general, not just on this issue).

Death is hard and grief is a minefield to navigate. We don't know what effect our words are going to have and even with the best intentions we can cause upset. I'd prefer someone to accidentally use a word I don't like than to not hear from friends at all in a time of need - Brits are already terrible when it comes to supporting one another through death, let's not make people further scared about reaching out to friends and family when a loved one passes

I'm not fond of 'passed away' myself but as you say, different strokes.

Well personally, I'm not fond of euphemisms but mostly what I've learned from someone who wrote about the death of his wife and was afterwards involved in helping people through grief, some of them children. What he said was that is was much less muddling and vague to used 'died' because then everyone knows exactly what you mean.
That's all.

You said it though. She was in shock and couldn’t bring herself to say died.

What was there to forgive?

I was told my husband “ didn’t make it.” I knew what they meant because of tone, everything.

I was in shock. He could have said passed, died, anything and I still would have been in shock and not understanding.

It took a year for me not to expect him to walk through the front door. I saw his body. I knew he was gone. I still left his clothes in the closet and his book on his nightstand for when he came home.

I'd use the term 'died' myself and find 'unalived' a bit ridiculous. BUT, having spent many years looking after bereaved families in some capacity (without being outing) I'm happy to use the terminology that the families of those that have died use. If they feel more comfortable saying 'passed away' or 'passed', that's fine. I'm not going to correct people that are grieving.

I thought ‘unalived’ was to get around social media (like YouTube) that bans certain words; I’ve never heard anyone say it in normal conversation.
My DH is dead. My DH has passed away. The former sounds blunt and the latter sounds gentler. Everyone knows what ‘passed away’ means. That is the beauty of language, it can evolve and words can have more than one meaning. And indeed when I had our family dog put to sleep and was updating my son did indeed text ‘he’s gone’. Because that’s exactly what happened; he was with us, then he wasn’t.

Exactly, there are much more important things to get wound up about in life

I did recently hear " Person has passed away at the age of..." on a TV news report, which I was surprised by. I don't think I've ever seen it in a written report, that's always "Person has died at the age of..."

I think k we all know what passed away means, so while I don't use it myself, I can live with it. But passed on its own is too ambiguous.

"Oh, hi, haven't seen you in ages, how are you doing?"
"Oh, you know, blah..."
"And how are your parents doing?"
"Well, Mum passed last year."
"Oh, that's great, good for her - I didn't realise she was taking exams, what was it in?

I agree that correcting someone's choice of words would be top level arsehole behaviour in this scenario and was taken aback by the PP who seemed to think it was funny when their friends/relatives/they themselves did this. But I didn't read that as what Internaut was saying.

I would try to match the person's language but as I said, there is a limit, and referring to someone as 'going to sleep' or 'went to be with Jesus', etc, would probably not be something I could bring myself to say. I don't feel that responding to that question by saying 'when did you lose x/when did they pass away?' WOULD be trying to correct them. I know that certainly isn't what I would be doing.

I've been in situations where I've referred to a relative as having 'died' and people responded by asking, 'when did they pass away' (and also vice versa). I didn't feel they were trying to correct me, rather than just using the language that came most naturally to them/they were most comfortable with. Maybe it depends on tone? I've obviously been fortunate in not encountering anyone who deliberately misunderstood or said 'You mean DIED??'.

I quite liked the suggestion upthread of simply omitting the reference where possible and responding more obliquely with something like 'sorry to hear that, when did it happen?' in an instance where one really doesn't feel able to match the language.

Usually though you would get a hint from the person's demeanour/tone that they were not talking about passing a driving test, etc.

Also context: if the person's mother was 94, there's a good chance they weren't taking their civil service entry exams.

Although I did know of a 99 year old who died in the middle of her Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award but there's always one.

I think "lost" is worse, a friend text me to say they'd lost their cat. I was about to offer with helping to look when I realised.

Good old Tennyson.

LM Montgomery's reference to 'crossing the bar' will have been inspired by Tennyson. From memory, it was the name of a chapter in Anne's House of Dreams, where an old sea-faring character, Captain Jim, pops his clogs <euphemism alert>.

I always preferred the Emily of New Moon trilogy to Anne of GG, but that's probably deserves a thread of its own.

A childhood friend has never really forgiven me for explaining to her, aged 7, what her mum REALLY meant when she said the cat 'had gone on holiday to the farm'.

Not sure why it's got you so annoyed? Grief is hard for some and if they use the term passed away the who am I to say they should use died instead? It's the bereaved that matter not your reaction to a perfectly normal phrase.