Someone died. How do you phrase that?

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Death is an inevitable part of life, but nevertheless for a long time people seem to have shied away from actually saying the words ‘they died’. All kinds of euphemisms have been used such as ‘went to Heaven’, ‘passed away’ ‘passed on’, ‘departed this life’ even (rather scarily) ‘fell asleep’, not to mention humorous turns of phrase such as ‘pushing up the daisies’. But over the last few years a new phrase has started to turn up - saying that a dead person ‘has passed’. I don’t know where this has come from but it’s very confusing. When someone says, for example, ‘my sister just passed’ the immediate response is to say ‘Congratulations!’ thinking they must have passed some professional exam or perhaps a driving test. This can then lead to confusion and embarrassment on both sides. Obviously posting this here isn’t going to have much effect on what seems to be a widespread phenomenon, but please, if you can, avoid this confusing phraseology! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.