2. 外语
  3. (1) I heard it argued recently that saying "My father died" is insufficiently honest. Instead, one should say "My father is dead

(1) I heard it argued recently that saying "My father died" is insufficiently honest. Instead, one should say "My father is dead

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问题     (1) I heard it argued recently that saying "My father died" is insufficiently honest. Instead, one should say "My father is dead", to better recognise that death is an ongoing condition rather than a one-off tragedy. This struck me as both true and uncomfortably strict.
    (2) There is, at the moment, a craze for speaking bluntly about death. It began, as so many fashionable ideas do, as a necessary reaction to the status quo. Modern death is so discreetly done, overseen by professionals in hospitals and funeral homes, that it often feels weirdly invisible. Using delicate or obfuscating language is thought to reinforce the sense of taboo.
    (3) The terminal illness charity Marie Curie has just released a list of the 50 most popular British euphemisms (委婉语) for death—ranging from "passed away" to the less familiar "wearing a wooden onesie". The sheer volume of phrases, says the charity, "suggests society still has some way to go to feel comfortable about talking about dying".
    (4) But I’m not sure about that correlation. Some of the phrases listed here, such as "popped their clogs" or "kicked the bucket", are not really euphemisms. They are little jokes, defiant jabs of humour. Many of them originate from WWI, when the casualties were so relentless that the only way to endure it was with black humour. "Pushing up the daisies" and "become a landowner"—both phrases that date from the Great War—are almost anti-euphemisms, with their frank insistence on the corpse rotting in the soil.
    (5) Even the much-derided "pass away" isn’t a modern euphemism at all, but a 14th century invention. Death was hardly a secret during the plague-ridden Dark Ages, when the average life expectancy was 24 for men and 33 for women. "Pass away" was not intended to disguise the reality of death, but to describe it. Christians of the time believed that the souls of the recently dead stayed in their bodies until the funeral rites were complete, at which point they "passed away" into the afterlife.
    (6) The difficulty now is that we live in a secular society, but rely on the consolations of faith. Christian phrases that once had literal meanings are now reduced to hollow platitudes. Few modern Britons really believe that the dead are "with the angels" or "looking down from Heaven". For the recently bereaved, these empty sentiments can in fact be the opposite of consoling. I remember, after my baby nephew died, feeling a rush of rage towards someone who assured me that he had "gone to a better place". Better than his mother’s arms? It’s not a comfort: it’s an insult.
    (7) But an abundance of language is not, ordinarily, evidence of a taboo (禁忌). Quite the opposite. We have all those words for death because we need them. The reality is too vast, too various, too confounding to be simply expressed. One word just isn’t enough.
According to the author, which of the following sentences is NOT true about the phrase "pass away"?
选项 A、It’s widely used to refer to "death".
B、It was a euphemistic way to say "death".
C、It was first invented in the 14th century.
D、It was intended to describe the reality of death.
答案B
解析 细节题。第5段对pass away的起源和真正含义进行了集中阐述，第1句便提到Even the much—derided “pass away” isn’t a modem euphemism at all“甚至连备受嘲笑的pass away都不是一个现代委婉语”，而第3句指出，“pass away”并不是要掩盖死亡的事实，而是要描述死亡，可见其直接性。由此可知B项说法错误，符合题干要求。第3段第1句提到wearing a wooden onesie这一表达人们不太熟悉，且用pass away与之进行对比，说明人们常用pass away来表达“死亡”，因此A项说法正确。可排除。第5段第1句提到pass away始于14世纪、第3句指出其目的是直观描述“死亡”。而非掩饰，因此C、D项说法均正确。直接排除。
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