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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Funeral serv ices - one at church, one at the crematorium perhaps???
  • john holdingjohn holding Host Emeritus
    If you're talking about Canada (and maybe the US), I've never heard of a service at the crematorium. Crematoriums are entirely utilitarian facilities that take delivery of bodies in caskets and reduce them to ashes without any attendant ritual or the presence of any person. Bodies are cremated before or after a service of some sort (or indeed without a service). The service, if there is one, is normally held at a "funeral home" -- which will be a separate facility from any crematorium. There may or may not be clergy involved. More rarely, there will be a service in a church.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Lyda wrote: »
    I don't know but in the US apple cider is not alcoholic unless it's "hard".

    Whereas here in Australia I'd expect all "cider" to be alcoholic. You'd have to specify non-alcoholic cider.

    No doubt various Australian travellers in the USA have been deeply disappointed when they've ordered a cider and got some kind of fruity soft drink.
    Not a fruity soft drink. More like (sometimes cloudy) apple juice.

    If you're talking about Canada (and maybe the US), I've never heard of a service at the crematorium. Crematoriums are entirely utilitarian facilities that take delivery of bodies in caskets and reduce them to ashes without any attendant ritual or the presence of any person. Bodies are cremated before or after a service of some sort (or indeed without a service). The service, if there is one, is normally held at a "funeral home" -- which will be a separate facility from any crematorium. There may or may not be clergy involved. More rarely, there will be a service in a church.
    Yes regarding the lack of services or anything at crematoriums (crematoria?) in the US. They don’t happen.

    But in terms of services, there could be the church or funeral home service and the commital service at the cemetery.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I was talking of Oz, where on occasions there are additional services at the graveside or chapel for cremations. FWIW, there are very few funerals held in churches these days. It's a very non-scientific method, but I read the death notices each day. Some detail a church service and the majority of those are Catholic. My experience is that it's pretty rare for there to be a separate service at the crematorium/graveside.

    Most notices refer to a service at the cemetery/crematorium (most provide both). Those places have non-religious chapels, and if there is a cremation, the coffin slides out from there. On the increasing rare occasion of a burial, there will be a short procession to the graveside where a further short service may be held.

    Over 75% of weddings are civil these days and my impression is that the figure is about the same for funerals.
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    I beg to differ, @Nick Tamen . Both of my parents had short services at the crematorium, as well as their regular funeral services. My father in particular, that's where there was the military guard and folding the flag and presenting it to my mother. There was also a short religious bit as well.
  • NicoleMR wrote: »
    I beg to differ, @Nick Tamen . Both of my parents had short services at the crematorium, as well as their regular funeral services.
    Interesting. Thanks for that. I should always be mindful that the US is a big place and things can be done differently in various parts of the country.

    Here (NC), the crematorium is, as @john holding said for Canada, totally utilitarian. The ashes are returned to the family in time to be present at the funeral, if that’s what the family desires. Many churches have small funeral palls to cover the box or urn containing the ashes. If there are to be military honors, that generally happens at the cemetery, or at the columbarium as might be the case.

    Church funerals are still common here. I’ve been to many funerals in my lifetime, and I can count on one hand the ones that were not in a church. (That, of course, is partially due to the circles I move in.) And funerals in the funeral home chapel are often still religious, presided over by ministers. But I expect this will change some, as many people aren’t connected to a church these days.

    Graveside (including columbarium) services are also pretty universal. They are short, but there are Scripture readings, prayers and committal of the deceased. Sometimes (as for my grandparents and my parents) they are before the church service and are mainly for family and close friends. You go from the cemetery to the church. Sometimes they’re immediately after the church or funeral home service, and everybody goes from the service to the cemetery. And sometimes, especially if the deceased was cremated and/or is being buried or interred somewhere distant from where the service was, the burial or internment happens later, maybe weeks or months later, again with mainly family and close friends attending.

  • mousethief wrote: »
    Why do north Americans talk about "funeral services", plural, when the rest of us use the singular for the same singular event? I asked a minister and he had no idea either.

    I've never heard "funeral services" used for a single service.

    Around here (southern Ontario) you'll see it all the time in death notices and obituaries. Perhaps it's a regional usage, but I've seen it elsewhere, too.
    Usually it is just "funeral", and I've never heard the term "death notice". Obituary or obit for short. (Though some of my friends call them the older adult sports pages, which record only the losses.)

    There's usually a clear distinction between the two. A death notice is just that - a brief paid newspaper announcement that someone has died. An obituary is the condensed story of a person's life, some of them being considerable works of biographical journalism. Though to be fair, some paid announcements ramble on, listing every cat and dog the departed ever owned.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    There's usually a clear distinction between the two. A death notice is just that - a brief paid newspaper announcement that someone has died. An obituary is the condensed story of a person's life, some of them being considerable works of biographical journalism. Though to be fair, some paid announcements ramble on, listing every cat and dog the departed ever owned.

    That's the usage here.
  • My other half's funeral was in church: lots of music, panegyric, etc. The only people at the crematorium afterwards were me, her daughter's husband and the priest. No music, just final commendation.

    Similarly the notice in the paper just gave details of her, us, funeral arrangements and charity for donations.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    I've been watching a lot of old clips on YouTube, and a very dated pond difference has struck me. American wrestling came with a lot of back story, about how much the fighters hated each other and wanted to cause permanent injury. The British stuff tended to be two blokes fighting hard but appreciating each other; you could imagine them sharing a pint afterwards.

    As I said, I'm describing something that happened 40 years ago, roughly. My impression is that the "American style" has taken over here now, but I'm not up to date. (And I am aware that both styles were fixed; I find it interesting that they presented themselves differently.)
  • My other half's funeral was in church: lots of music, panegyric, etc. The only people at the crematorium afterwards were me, her daughter's husband and the priest. No music, just final commendation.

    Similarly the notice in the paper just gave details of her, us, funeral arrangements and charity for donations.

    I do a fair number like that as well, just the committal at the crematorium. But that is at least partly because the crem is a 100 mile round trip which is difficult for then whole village to makes, so the service is in the church first. But people who live closer to the crem, or those who don’t expect much of a turn out and want cremation, not burial, often just have the full service at the crem (and I am lucky that our “local” once gives hour long slots. I have officiated in places which give only 30 minutes and 10 of them are for going in and out).

    But in the USA, where I was living when I took my first funerals, church funerals were nearly always for those who had live church connection, and not even all of them; and the most common location for the service, religious or not, was the undertaker’s chapel. Then on the crem or cemetery, sometimes with no one attending.
  • TheOrganistTheOrganist Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Our local gives you a half-hour slot which includes the 5 minutes for getting out before the next family - who they want to start coming in 5 minutes before their slot time - so in reality you have 20 minutes tops for everything. That is the basic which will cost you just over £1,000 before you even think of the fees charged by the undertaker. There are longer slots available but they cost more, same for a Saturday cremation.

    Of our local undertakers, most belong to either Dignity in Dying or the Co-Operative: both are way more expensive for a "basic" funeral than the independents, and the mark-up* they put on things like Orders of Service, flowers, putting notices in the local paper, etc, are frightening.

    So much so that before The Virus took over all of our lives our church was in the process of drawing up an "approved" funeral plan with one of our local indepdent undertakers. We're still trying to get it sorted out by using emails only.

    *an additional 200% for printing, etc, is not uncommon.
  • My other half's funeral was in church: lots of music, panegyric, etc. The only people at the crematorium afterwards were me, her daughter's husband and the priest. No music, just final commendation.

    Similarly the notice in the paper just gave details of her, us, funeral arrangements and charity for donations.

    Orthodoxy forbids cremation except where it's required by law, so it's burial for us, with a second service. Nothing like as long or elaborate as the funeral in the temple (church) however.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Orthodoxy forbids cremation except where it's required by law, so it's burial for us, with a second service. Nothing like as long or elaborate as the funeral in the temple (church) however.

    Strictly the burial is not a separate service but the completion of the funeral. It presupposes that the burial ground is within a short walk from the church.

    Note also that the Orthodox funeral service actually begins in the home of the deceased before moving to the church.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Funeral Services--usually involve two services. 1) In the church or funeral home and then 2) the committal service at the place of burial. They are not one and the same. We had a memorial service many years ago for my father. My brother has his ashes. Once my mother dies we will likely have a memorial service for her as well; then, later, we will commit their ashes at their most favorite camping area.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @mousethief and @Ex_Organist do all Orthodox disinter the deceased after 5 or 7 years and retain just the bones in a box in charnel house, or is that a specifically Greek custom?

    It goes very much against English practice, where once a body is in the ground, especially if the ground is consecrated and subject to ecclesiastical law, that's it. It's virtually impossible to get permission to disinter it for any cause or reason whatsoever.

  • Enoch wrote: »
    @mousethief and @Ex_Organist do all Orthodox disinter the deceased after 5 or 7 years and retain just the bones in a box in charnel house, or is that a specifically Greek custom?

    To the best of my knowledge that is essentially a Greek custom, related to the lack of burial space in Greece. It is certainly not done in Russia, nor, as far as I am aware, by Greeks in UK.
  • Note also that the Orthodox funeral service actually begins in the home of the deceased before moving to the church.

    I have never experienced that, and I have probably been to a dozen Orthodox funerals. I have also held vigil reading psalms over the dead during the middle of the night—at the church.

    I have to assume the walk-to-church thing works better when you're in some tiny Greek village where nobody lives more than 2 miles from church. In the diaspora, not so well.
  • The only place I've heard about digging up bones has been Athos, although there are charnel houses across eastern Europe, such as this one.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Around Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, bodies were buried in limestone caves. The acid from the limestone would eat away the body. After a year, the family would return to the cave and collect the bones, putting them in an ossuary. The cave would then be reused.

    I think it is quite common for the remains of a body in New Orleans to be removed after two years and the coffin is destroyed, leaving the tomb ready for the next body--the tombs stay within the family.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Around Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, bodies were buried in limestone caves. The acid from the limestone would eat away the body. After a year, the family would return to the cave and collect the bones, putting them in an ossuary. The cave would then be reused.

    I believe that's why the Gospel of John makes a point of saying "a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid." (NRSV)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Limestone is alkaline.
  • Alas poor Yorick, I knew him.

    They also dig up many bones and then build bone chapels from them on the Iberian peninsula.

    There's also the custom of displaying corpes under glass in churches in Mexico and points south.
  • There's also the custom of displaying corpes under glass in churches in Mexico and points south.

    And also points north.

    (I visited her following a trip to the nearby Cloisters many years ago.)
  • I buried a Swiss woman here (and she had lived here) because if she had gone back to her family home for burial it would on.y have been for 30 years, and her partner didn’t like that thought.
  • Nearer home, I read in a history of St Kilda (which I have but can't find) that burials there were temporary due to the lack of space, so the lairs were constantly recycled. Cremation can't have been an option there, so I suppose it was a practical approach to the problem.
  • I have not been on this thread, and there were over 1000 posts I haven't read. I do recall that there is a difference in how Americans count. It is something like us going to 100,000, when the Americans call that a million. This arises in my calcified mind because the Rich Lists are being published at the moment. I think that means that Australian millionaires are richer than American millionaires.

  • john holdingjohn holding Host Emeritus
    Not at 100,000 -- t he difference arises at what you call 100,000,000 -is it a hundred million, or is it a billion?
  • ahhh, thanks John!
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Not at 100,000 -- t he difference arises at what you call 100,000,000 -is it a hundred million, or is it a billion?

    We'd call that a hundred million. A thousand million is a billion.
  • No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.
  • Of course since "mille" means "thousand" it's all wrong. :)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Of course since "mille" means "thousand" it's all wrong. :)

    Whichever usage you follow.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.

    Ei filiynau - his m/billions.

    Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-

    Fy miliynau - my m/billions.

    There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.

  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited April 2020
    Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.

    It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.

    The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Of course since "mille" means "thousand" it's all wrong. :)

    Whichever usage you follow.

    I think the idea is that mille - thousand, million thousand thousands.

    SI of course goes differently and uses Mega.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    That's an idea, must look up anything on the etymology and see where that leads.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    From recollection, I think Indians count large numbers in 100,000s, so that you get a lakh of rupees. Does any Shipmate know for certain?
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.

    When did this happen? I thought a billion was a million million, but when I went to school good Queen Bess was on the throne. (In addition, this comment has made me realise I've never used the term in a precise manner.)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.

    When did this happen? I thought a billion was a million million, but when I went to school good Queen Bess was on the throne. (In addition, this comment has made me realise I've never used the term in a precise manner.)

    1974 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    As early as that? That's billions of years earlier than I expected!
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    What are we supposed to call a million milllion, then?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Trillion
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Does anyone here still use "milliard"?
    The term milliard can also be used to refer to 1,000,000,000; whereas "milliard" is rarely used in English,[5] variations on this name often appear in other languages.

    (From Wikipedia.)
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.

    Ei filiynau - his m/billions.

    Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-

    Fy miliynau - my m/billions.

    There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.

    Not to mention Welsh having two different counting systems, one (traditional) vigesimal and one (modernish) decimal. The former usually now only used in conjunction with time related concepts ( telling time, people's ages, dates, etc.). If the older system has words for million, billion and so on, I've never heard them, but I suppose there wasn't much call for them historically

    Mutations are bugger, but occasionally give rise to some amusing bilingual doubles entendres
  • Many years ago when driving through northern Arizona we were listening to the news on a Navajo radio station. We had no idea what they were saying, but we enjoyed the sound of it. I got the impression that they did not have words for really large numbers. While going on and on in Navajo, they would suddenly use the word "million" or "billion." (The only other words I understood were names, mostly of politicians.)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Robertus L wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.

    Ei filiynau - his m/billions.

    Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-

    Fy miliynau - my m/billions.

    There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.

    Not to mention Welsh having two different counting systems, one (traditional) vigesimal and one (modernish) decimal. The former usually now only used in conjunction with time related concepts ( telling time, people's ages, dates, etc.). If the older system has words for million, billion and so on, I've never heard them, but I suppose there wasn't much call for them historically

    Mutations are bugger, but occasionally give rise to some amusing bilingual doubles entendres

    Not just time - hanner cant ceiniog - 50p
  • Enoch wrote: »
    From recollection, I think Indians count large numbers in 100,000s, so that you get a lakh of rupees. Does any Shipmate know for certain?

    1 lakh is 100,000. 100 lakhs is a crore.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.

    It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.

    The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".

    And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
    Rather similar to eighty-seven being "four score and seven."

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