When it comes to talking about death, we have no shortage of euphemisms. This is perhaps most famously illustrated in Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch from 1971. A pet shop worker insists to a customer that his new parrot is “not dead but resting, stunned, pining for the fjords, kipping on his back, tired and shagged out after a long squawk”. The customer responds: “It is an ex-parrot, deceased, gone to the choir invisible, is pushing up the daisies, demised, passed on, is no more, has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to see its maker, is a bereft of life, late parrot that rests in peace.”
Talking openly about death – and dying – can be difficult. People who have cared for someone who is dying have been shown to feel they can engage more easily with this behaviour. Their experience helps them overcome the barriers that so many of us feel.
