Mortal Coil
Some euphemisms I love. ‘Batting on a sticky wicket’, for example. I love that. And then there are euphemisms that just don’t work. The worst of these is, undoubtedly, ‘he’s shuffled off this mortal coil’. For one thing, if it’s a woman who has died, it’s plainly pronoun-inaccurate. For another, even if it’s a man, can I just point out two words for y’all to ponder more carefully: ’shuffled’ and ‘coil’. You shouldn’t shuffle off mortal coils. You should ’spring’, dammit!
Funeral directors, serial killers and obituary columnists, let’s sort this out, huh?
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Posted: July 31st, 2006 under thoughts.
Tags: euphemisms, funeral directors, mortal coils, serial killers
[...] wasted two hours of my precious mortal life watching Twilight the other night. Where, oh where is Buffy when you really need [...]