Could it really be 15 years since we waited in this funeral home parking lot for a wake to begin? It seems only last week that we were here for her mother. Both women are now gone from our lives, too soon. We steel ourselves for a few moments more but exit the car when her grandmother arrives. I take the small woman’s frail arm, opposite the one holding a cane, and walk my mother-in-law into the building.
The funeral parlor hasn’t changed much. In place of easels with poster boards full of family photographs, a large-screen monitor at the back of the room runs a PowerPoint file chronicling my niece’s life. Friends and family watch and smile as they recognize themselves in photographs from happier days.
Funeral parlor conversations haven’t changed much either. She “passed away,” “is in a better place,” and “is at peace.” Most conversations are in those soft tones reserved for such occasions. Quiet laughter, though, is heard every so often as stories about fun times are retold.
Wikipedia includes a table of more than 131 expressions related to death categorized as slang, polite, formal, humorous, and so forth. In my work as a medical copy editor, we encounter expressions for death in many forms.
Large clinical trials may include a Kaplan-Meier graph illustrating mortality, with each treatment group represented by a curve that shows the percentage or proportion of patients still alive as follow-up progressed. The number of patients at risk at regular time intervals is provided in a table; the values dwindle as they advance in pace with the downward trajectory of their group’s curve. Text descriptions may list the different causes of death with a simple “(n = X)” after each one. “Seventy-two patients with visual impairment died during follow-up: myocardial infarction (n = 27), respiratory disease (n = 18), and renal disease (n = 12) were the causes most often listed for patients with this information.”
Case reports provide narratives of a single patient from presentation to the end of follow-up or death. In these manuscripts, I’m more likely to encounter euphemisms (taken from the Greek eu, “good,” and pheme, “voice”). The AMA Manual of Style describes euphemisms as “indirect terms used to express something unpleasant,” and states that “directness is better in scientific writing.” Part of my job, then, is to replace the euphemisms: patients died rather than succumbed or passed away.
Even reports of animal studies are not immune to the appearance of euphemisms. Such studies typically require the animal’s death to allow for dissection and subsequent measurement of bone, tissue, or ligament to assess outcomes. However, even in these manuscripts, I often replace sacrificed or euthanized with killed or humanely killed.
The Manual’s chapter on correct and preferred usage further states that “persons die of, not from, specific diseases or disorders.” An example of this usage could be the written as: “She died of complications of renal failure.”
Scientific reports may seem clinical and removed; patients may be grouped and their mortality is frequently categorized. Nevertheless, individual lives underlie advances in medical science. Although euphemisms seem called for when discussing the deaths of people we love, direct language, such as that used in our work, is no less respectful.—Connie Manno, ELS