The Language of Death

Did a well-meaning parent or teacher ever tell you that words can’t hurt you? While this is a well-intentioned encouragement to brush off painful words, it is also patently untrue. Words are important, and while a dictionary might tell you two words have the exact same meaning, experience tells us that those words can have wildly different connotations depending on the speaker, the listener, and the situation.

At Project 4031, we recognize the power of our words. My research about end-of-life experiences recently led me to With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well by Dr. Katherine Mannix, an experienced hospice physician:

“It has become taboo to mention dying….  Euphemisms like ‘passed’ or ‘lost’ have replaced ‘died’ and ‘dead’. Illness has become a ‘battle’…. No matter that a life was well-lived, that an individual was contented with their achievements and satisfied by their lifetime’s tally of rich experiences: at the end of their life they will be described as having ‘lost their battle’, rather than simply having died.

Reclaiming the language of illness and dying enables us to have simple, unambiguous conversations about death. Allowing each other to discuss dying, rather than treating the D-words as magic ciphers that may cause harm merely by being spoken aloud, can support a dying person in anticipating the last part of their living, in planning ahead in order to prepare their loved ones for bereavement, and can bring the notion of death as the thing that happens at the end of every life back into the realm of the normal. Open discussion reduces superstition and fear, and allows us to be honest with each other at a time when pretense and well-intentioned lies can separate us, wasting time that is very precious.”

When your mission is to improve end-of-life stories, dealing with death and dying are unavoidable. However, it led our team to wonder: How should we be talking about these things? What should be our vocabulary and voice? Does it make a difference if we talk about dying versus being terminal or about death versus passing away? Does losing the brave battle with an illness reduce the person to a loser instead of a person who had a rich full life but also happened to die from an illness?

While we could all point to words that don’t help, what words do help? Perhaps this is as individual as those who grieve. I am a person of faith, but for me in my time of grief, platitudes were unhelpful and annoying. The one condolence that spoke to me: when my aunt hugged me and said, “This just sucks!” Indeed it did; she spoke my crushing truth. I felt seen, and I felt understood.

At Project 4031, we want to use language that is honest and clear but that doesn’t add the lemon juice of insensitivity to the deep cut of painful loss. In an effort to create a cohesive voice, we are engaged in a series of language polls on our social media platforms. To follow our language study and participate in language polls, follow us on social media.

Source

Mannix, Katherine. With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well. London:
William Collins, 2018, p. 113.