Doesn’t Anybody Just Die Anymore?

I’ll admit it. I’m a Word Nerd. I love words. I’m even more passionate about grammar and usage, making me a card-carrying member of the Grammar Police. Don’t blame me. Blame my age.

Back in the dim darks when I was in school, grammar was taught in every grade, K through 12. We all knew every part of speech and how (and why) to diagram a sentence.

Do you? If you’re in your fifties or younger, the answer is probably no. They haven’t taught this stuff in schools for decades.

I’m a member of a dying breed, and it makes me sad. As grammar and the norms of English usage disappear, I struggle to keep my rage and sorrow under control.

I often make myself feel better by focusing on errors in common speech. Here are two of my favorite peeves:

Thanks for having me and Enjoy!

What’s wrong with Thanks for having me? Keep reading, and I’ll tell you.

The verb in this sentence is have, and it’s almost always intransitive. It doesn’t denote an action and it doesn’t take an object. It doesn’t do anything. When have is forced into an active role, its meaning changes, and things can get a little weird.

In my imagination, Thanks for having me transmutes into Thanks for haaaaving me… with visions of well…you know. Every time I hear someone say it, especially on tv, the image that pops up doesn’t belong on this family-friendly website.

Okay, you say. If you’re really, really fussy, Thanks for having me might suggest the wrong picture. But what’s the matter with Enjoy?

Grammatically, the fault here is the opposite of the one in Thanks for having me. Enjoy is a transitive verb. It has to take an object. You can enjoy an ice cream cone or a really good movie, but when enjoy has no object it just sounds…well...stupid.

Hang on, you might say. The object is implied. Obviously, the speaker wants you to enjoy the ice cream, the movie, the box of chocolates you’ve just bought. True enough, but active verbs like enjoy must have an object. Implying that object just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Let’s shift from grammar to usage. I’m not a big fan of euphemism, the softening, in writing or in speech, of an offensive word or deed. One example that really sets my teeth on edge is pass away.

No one is allowed to die any more. We have to pass away, pass on, or just plain pass. Everyone, from the President-elect on down, is reluctant to say the word die.

I just don’t get it.

Maybe it’s a religious issue. When I asked my not-at-all observant Jewish mother what happens when we die, she said we live on in the memories of the people who loved us. So long as someone remembers me, I’ll never really die.

It wasn’t an answer I wanted to get behind, but I could understand it. Every time my mother’s words come into my head, I frantically remember everyone I know who has died. I still do it, especially when thinking of my father, who died 56 years ago this month.

I rarely raise this question with my non-Jewish friends. In western countries, most people are familiar with images of the Christian view of life after death: Heaven, and Angels, and white puffy clouds like scoops of vanilla ice cream. Jewish souls sitting around hoping to be remembered just can’t compete.

Still, this penchant for passing away puzzles me. I asked a friend who uses it often why she doesn’t just say died. She answered without the slightest hesitation: because it sounds too final.

Well. That stopped me cold. Too final?

I ran it past a few others, expecting a laugh. What I got instead was a thoughtful silence ending with “Yeah. That’s about right.”

Stunning. The roots of “passing on” are buried in Christian eschatology!

That clinches it. When my time is up, I’m not going to pass away, pass on, or even pass. I’m going to shuffle off this mortal coil and just plain die.

Best wishes for the holiday season,

Doesn’t Anybody Die Anymore?