Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

222 Forbidden Words
Of those that lawless and uncertain thought
Imagine howling – ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III.i.118)
Death is a fear-based taboo. There is fear of the loss of loved ones; fear of the
corruption and disintegration of the body; fear of the very finality of death;
fear of what follows the end of life (few, and arguably none, have first hand
experience of death); fear of malevolent spirits, or of the souls of the dead.
Then, suddenly again Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world with his
chin in his hands, called out ‘Pooh!’
‘Yes?’ said Pooh.
‘When I’m – when – Pooh!’
‘Yes, Christopher Robin?’
‘I’m not going to do Nothing any more.’
‘Never again?’
‘Well, not so much. They don’t let you.’
Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.
‘Yes, Christopher Robin?’ said Pooh helpfully.
‘Pooh, when I’m – you know – when I’m not doing Nothing, will you come up here
sometimes?’ . . .
Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh’s
paw.
‘Pooh,’ said Christopher Robin earnestly, ‘if I – if I’m not quite –’ he stopped and
tried again – ‘Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won’t you?
‘Understand what?’
‘Oh nothing.’ He laughed and jumped to his feet.
‘Come on!’
‘Where?’ said Pooh.
‘Anywhere,’ said Christopher Robin. (Milne 1948: 77f)
Christopher Robin cannot bring himself to speak explicitly of his own
death, 43 and this is common – except perhaps among the very elderly and
terminally ill.
Life insurance is insurance against death; death’s antonym life is utilized to
put a value on the life continued. A doctor (or financial planner) may advise a
terminally ill patient with the words I think it’s time you got your affairs in
order – prepare for death, with all matters arranged to cause the least inconvenience
to family, friends, the law, government officers and the undertaker.
44 Ancient Greek and Latin have exact counterparts to the English if