Discussion Groups / British English / August 2005

That depends on who has died, in what circumstances, who his/her
relatives are and their views on death.  Having a lot of elderly relatives
myself, death is a fairly frequent occurence so my family tends to be fairly
blase about it.

My wife's cherished grandmother died a few weeks ago at the age of 96.
Although the death was not unexpected, my wife was quite sad.
However, she (and all the rest of the family) laughed when her great aunt
(the grandmother's younger sister of 94) said
"The bugger's gone and beaten me yet again".

But my wife was a little upset when the solicitor's letter arrived to tell
her about a small bequest because there were no words of condolence.
It assumed that she would be delighted to hear about the money that
she was expecting.  Not only was my wife extremely fond of her
grandmother and was anything but delighted at her death, the bequest
came as a complete surprise because she had already received the
amount as a gift several years ago but the will had never been changed
to reflect the situation.

An unexpected death is much more of a shock and, consequently,
it would be wise to refer to the event in less direct terms, if you don't
know the people well.

Most people find the euphemisms that are stereotypically employed
by older undertakers and clergymen such as "the dear departed"
rather distasteful and obsequious in this day and age.  Mind you,
the poor clergy are often called in at a moment's notice to officiate
at the funeral of someone who has only crossed the threshold of a
church for christenings, weddings and deaths (hatches, matches and
dispatches) and then are criticised for getting certain aspects of the
life story incorrect.

Some vulgar but not necessarily abhorrent terms for dying are:

croak
kick the bucket
buy the farm
auger in

I'm not sure what you mean by abhorrent word for die anyway. Do you
mean wishing someone would die?