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By Root 516 0

” but rather of the “call.” We do not “haul” a dead person, we “transfer” or “remove” him—and we do this in a “service car,” not a “body car.” We “open and close” his grave rather than dig and fill it, and in it we “inter” rather than bury him. This is done not in a graveyard or cemetery, but rather in a “memorial park.” The deceased is beautified, not with makeup, but with “cosmetics.” Anyway, he didn’t die, he “expired.” An important error to guard against, cautions Mr. Landig, is referring to “cost of the casket.” The phrase “amount of investment in the service” is a wiser usage here.

Miss Anne Hamilton Franz, writing in Funeral Direction and Management, adds an interesting footnote on the use of the word “ashes” to describe (in a word) ashes. She fears this usage will encourage scattering (for what is more natural than to scatter ashes?), and prefers to speak of “cremated remains” or “human remains.” She does not like the word “retort” to describe the container in which cremation takes place, but prefers “cremation chamber” or “cremation vault,” because this “sounds better and softens any harshness to sensitive feelings.”

As for the Loved One, poor fellow, he wanders like a sad ghost through the funeral men’s pronouncements. No provision seems to have been made for the burial of a Heartily Disliked One, although the necessity for such must arise in the course of human events.*

* The funeral people, ever alert to fill a need, have come up with a casket that can be written on. The York “Expressions” casket, introduced at the 1996 convention of the National Funeral Directors Association, features “a smooth surface with a special coating on which those who gather may write one last farewell to the departed.” The caskets come with a set of permanent markers and a Memorial Guide that rashly invites “those who gather” to “make known their hidden thoughts.” As happens when chums are invited to autograph a schoolmate’s surgical cast, there will predictably be the occasional nonconformist who is unable to resist the temptation to use the permanent marker to express his hidden thoughts, however derogatory.

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The Rationale

A funeral service is a social function at which the deceased is the guest of honor and the center of attraction…. A poorly prepared body in a beautiful casket is just as incongruous as a young lady appearing at a party in a costly gown and with her hair in curlers.

—CLARENCE G. STRUB AND L. G. FREDERICK,

The Principles and Practices of Embalming

The words “costly gown” are the operative ones in the above paragraph, culled from a standard embalming-school textbook. The same thought is often expressed by funeral men: “Certainly, the incentive to select quality merchandise would be materially lessened if the body of the deceased were not decontaminated and made presentable,” says De-Ce-Co, the publication of a funeral supply company. And Mr. T. E. Schier, president of the Settegast-Kopf Funeral Home in Houston, Texas, says, “The majority of the American people purchase caskets, not for the limited solace from their beauty prior to funeral service, or for the impression that they may create before their friends and associates. Instead, they full-heartedly believe that the casket and the vault give protection to that which has been accomplished by the embalmer.”

One might suppose—and many people do—that the whole point of embalming is the long-term preservation of the deceased. Actually, although phrases like “peace-of-mind protection” and “eternal preservation” crop up frequently in casket and vault advertising, the embalmers themselves know better. For just how long is an embalmed body preserved? The simple truth is that a body can be preserved for a very long time indeed—probably for many years, depending upon the strength of the fluids used, and the temperature and humidity of the surrounding atmosphere. Cadavers prepared for use in anatomical research may outlast the hardiest medical student. The trouble is, they don’t look very pretty; in fact they tend to resemble old shoe leather.

The