MARCH 14 2020 LISTENER 11
BACK TO BLACK
Spare me the euphemisms
Why, exactly, in
the face of the
Covid-19 scare,
are some peoplestockpiling
water?M
y first job as a young
reporter was at the Upper
Hutt Leader, a weekly
community newspaper, and
it was there that, for the first time,
I covered a fatal road accident. The
victim happened to be a girl I had
known at school. I wrote that she
had been killed. Then, thinking that
“killed” sounded too brutal for her
family to read, I crossed it out and
wrote “passed away”, before giving
my story to my editor.
He read it, crossed out
“passed away” and asked,
“What’s wrong with ‘died’?
Died is a good word. It’s
unambiguous, it’s not a
euphemism, say ‘died’.” So
I did and have done ever
since.
Last Tuesday, my mother
died. She had insisted
on having no funeral, so
on the Wednesday I was
arranging for her prompt
cremation. The funeral
directors were nice and
helpful people, except they
talked about Mum “pass-
ing”, which sounded to me
as though she had fainted.
Kind of, but permanently.
The following Monday,
the funeral director rang.
“I’m just letting you know
that your mum is backUnambiguous
language is clearly
not for everybody,
especially funeral
directors.
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“Okay – but some of you are cheering, right?”
with us,” she said. Momentarily, I was dumbstruck.
Mum was back? I had a split-second image of her
walking into the funeral home saying it had all been
a wretched mistake. Then I thought, “No, she was at
the crematorium, there must have been a malfunc-
tion. They mean they have the body back.” It was
only on thinking about the crematorium that I
realised what the funeral director was talking about.
“You mean you have Mum’s ashes back,” I said.
“Oh, yes, her ashes,” she corrected herself. Glad we
cleared that up, then.
L
ast week, I went panic-buying. I know it is ridic-
ulous to get caught up by hype, but I also knew
that others were competing with me for the
same products, and wanting distraction from my
mother’s terminal decline the night before she died,
I could not help myself. I went online, selected my
items and entered my bank details as rapidly as I
could, but even then I missed out on something I
wanted because the buying frenzy from others was
so great.
It was not hand sanitiser in my
online basket. I have never owned
any and never will. I try to buy as few
plastic bottles as I can get away with
and I can certainly get away with not
buying hand sanitiser. I prefer soap.
It works. Nor was I buying bottled
water. Why, exactly, in the face of
the Covid-19 scare, are some people
stockpiling water? I can only pre-
sume they think that a coronavirus
corrodes water pipes. I do not under-
stand it. Even if the virus spreads,
New Zealand in 2020 will not be
reprising the siege of Leningrad.
No, my desperate online purchase
had nothing to do with viruses. In
fact, it was something that will never
be of use to anyone, including, ahem,
me. It was a little china hen.
I collect pottery by the English
manufacturer Emma Bridgewater,
whose business model is
more akin to a fashion
house than a potter. Last
week, Bridgewater released
her spring/summer items,
including two coddlers
shaped like hens. I
frantically tried to get the
buttercup one and had it
in my basket, but before
I could check out, up
popped a message saying
they were sold out. I
shifted to the other option,
a black-and-white hen,
and was successful, though
it has not yet arrived. Yes,
yes, the air miles, etc,
climate change. I know,
I know. But at least I will
look upon my hen with
pleasure for years to come,
perhaps unlike those who
are panic-buying toilet
paper. l
JOANNE
BLACK
IN WELLINGTON