Misplaced Euphemisms in Newscasts

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hi.

Hello, who is this?

This is Nancy Staples calling from Providence, Rhode Island.

Hi, Nancy.

What’s up?

So, something has been bothering me, and I wanted to call and ask if it’s been bothering you guys, too.

I have lately noticed that newscasters seem to be afraid to use the term died on the air, and instead they opt for something like passed away.

And sometimes, to me, this seems very inappropriate, especially in the case of like a tragic event or some kind of a violent death.

And to me, it’s really very jarring, and it seems like a case of a euphemism gone wild.

And it seems to be increasing.

And I was wondering if you guys feel like this is the usage, this euphemism usage is increasing, and whether I’m right to be bothered by this.

You know, it’s weird.

I have noticed it just lately in the last two or three months, but that doesn’t mean that it’s new.

But, yeah, hearing people talk about passed away like in a bombing or a bus crash or something like that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And I feel like maybe it’s motivated by something good, like they’re trying to be more respectful.

But in a way, it produces the opposite effect.

It minimizes this event.

And it just seems ironic that, you know, we’re more and more frank on the news, and the news gets gorier and gorier, but yet we can’t just say the word died, and we can’t say the word was, you know, the term was killed.

You know, it just seems a little bit like, I don’t know, a crazy squeamishness about just using a perfectly normal word like died, you know.

Which is actually what happened.

If it’s a tragic event, it seems like you don’t want to minimize it.

You don’t want to belittle it at all.

Nancy, are there cases in which you would use passed away?

Is this like a total dislike of the term overall?

I would use passed away if someone died a very peaceful, expected death, maybe in their sleep.

But I also don’t like it.

It’s funny you should ask because I also don’t like it when people say that someone passed.

Interesting.

That also strikes me a little odd, but that’s a little bit off the topic.

Some of what you’re saying makes perfect sense to me.

I agree with you.

Passed away has got an extra little bit of information attached to it.

It says the person died peacefully, maybe after a long illness.

Yeah, surrounded by family and friends.

Do you remember this botched execution in Oklahoma where the guy, he didn’t actually die the way he was supposed to die?

He struggled.

He was on death row and they gave him some chemicals and it didn’t work out and he struggled and eventually he died of a heart attack.

Well, CNN said, and then he passed away.

I’m like, well, no.

Exactly.

If he died after all that, he died.

He died.

Died to me is just, it’s a word without nuance.

It just simply means no longer living and passed away.

It’s got this extra bit of information that doesn’t apply to these violent situations.

So I’m with you on that part.

But as far as the data showing whether or not it’s more common, I think you might be having a little bit of the recency illusion happening here where because you’ve noticed it, it now is more obvious to you and it seems more common than it actually is.

But I think it’s very striking if CNN used that language.

I mean, to me, it holds death, the reality of death at arm’s length.

There’s a really fabulous woman named Merrill Perlman who writes for the Columbia Journalism Review.

She was a copy editor, I believe, for the New York Times for a really long time.

And she wrote a really nice piece last year about all these different terms for dying that journalists use.

And her closing line is the best advice for a journalist.

She says, if you’re tempted to use any of the soft-pedaled terms for death in ordinary news writing, let the temptation die.

I mean, I’ll forgive her the little joke there.

But she’s got a really good point.

Just say that they died and let the story tell the details rather than trying to code it into the language that way.

That’s a great, I’ll have to hunt that one down.

That sounds very interesting.

Nancy, thank you so much for your call.

All right.

It was really great to talk with you guys.

I’m a huge fan.

I feel like I’m part of a global community of word lovers, which is just great.

You are.

You are.

I thought you were just going to say global conspiracy.

I’m like, that too.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Global conspiracy to make a…

Well, thanks so much.

Yeah, call us again sometime.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

All right.

Bye-bye.

It’s the global conspiracy to make language better.

Yes, and conversation about language better.

The subjects we cover on this show, Grant, it’s amazing.

And you can do it with us, too.

Call us 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.