If you say, “He stuck his spoon in the wall,” you mean that he died. In German, the person who’s deceased has passed along his spoon, and in Afrikaans, he’s jabbed his spoon into the ceiling. These expressions reflect the idea that eating is an essential part of life. An article in the British Medical Journal has a long list of euphemisms for dying, from the French avaler son extrait de naissance, “to swallow one’s birth certificate,” to the Portuguese phrase vestir pijama de madeira, “to wear wooden pajamas.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Stuck His Spoon in the Wall”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Lucia.
Hi, Lucia, where are you calling from?
I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.
Well, welcome to the show. How can we help?
Hiya.
Hi there. Well, my mother-in-law uses a phrase. It’s a euphemism for death. It’s to stick your spoon in the wall.
-huh.
And I cannot find where that phrase has come from or how it came to be, and I’m wondering if you could help.
Very good.
Well, I think it just has to do with the fact that eating is essential to life. There’s an expression in German that goes, hat den Löffel abgegeben, which is he passed along his spoon or he set his spoon aside, and that means he died as well.
There’s a version of this in Afrikaans, in South Africa, where you jab your spoon into the ceiling.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the idea has been around for a good long while. And there’s also to lay down one’s knife and fork as a way of saying that you died. Or in Finland, they say to throw the spoon into the corner.
But the idea is that you’re setting aside this thing and you’re never going to use it again. I mean, in Mexico, sometimes they say the equivalent of he hung up his tennis shoes.
Yeah. And what we’re envisioning here is, say, a cabin or an older style house, say pre-electricity, pre-modern era, kind of a one room house, where your utensils might actually be hung on the wall on a peg, and each person probably had their own utensil.
And so if John dies, then that spoon stays on the wall because nobody’s going to use John’s spoon. So he’s literally hung up his spoon on the wall.
Yeah, kind of testament to his passing away.
That is fabulous.
Yeah.
Isn’t that great?
Well, that so fits.
Yeah, English is replete with history.
Well, thank you so much.
You are so welcome.
I am so excited. I can’t wait to share this with her.
That’s great.
Thanks for calling.
I so appreciate it.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
All righty.
Bye-bye.
There is a fabulous article that was published earlier this year in the British Medical Journal where these researchers were talking about different euphemisms around the world for dying because doctors need to know this more and more internationally, you know, so they don’t say anything insensitive.
In Portuguese, a euphemism for death translates as to wear wooden pajamas.
To wear wooden pajamas.
Oh.
Or to not eat mangoes next season, speaking of food.
Isn’t that great?
Oh, I do like that one.
I’ll share some more of those later.
Yeah, I’ve got a few myself I’ll throw in there.
Okay, great.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
