Why, when someone dies, are they spoken of as a "body" or "corpse"?

[Duer 157099]

It really bothers me. Why not just say the name of the person and let it be? Why dissociate the person from their body, by saying things like "A corpse was found" rather than "So-and-so was found dead" etc?

"The body of..." WTF? Why not just "Jane Doe" or whatever their name was.

[Callmecrazy]

1. I've thought about that myself...

Maybe it carries back to the Christian belief that the you are the soul and the body is only a vessel.

[Katashi_itto]

15. I usually refer to them as "the stiff"

[defacto7]

34. When I was doing mountain rescue on the cascades we called them gumbys.

[corneliamcgillicutty]

76. mt. hood?

[defacto7]

88. Rainier

[Warpy]

2. Maybe they don't want to raise false hopes or prematurely

identify the body of the wrong person.

I was a nurse and I've seen a lot of death. After death, the person is gone, even though some individual body cells can remain alive for hours. If you've ever seen it, you know what I'm talking about. All that's there is a shell, whether the person has floated up to a heaven with a harp or just out of existence on a tide of happy hormones. They're gone. All that's left is an inert thing that was once a person.

[markpkessinger]

6. Thank you!

I was at the bedside of both of my parents when each of them died, and I do indeed know exactly what you are talking about.

[midwest irish]

28. My mother was a nurse

Last edited Thu Feb 21, 2013, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)

and tagged plenty of toes (incuding the father of a very very very notable journalist). She had the same view about death. I suppose its different when you have been around it and see it every day.

[orleans]

38. okay, you got 3 verys in there so spill the beans! who's the "notable journalist" n/t

[midwest irish]

46. Id Rather not say

[Sekhmets Daughter]

52. Cute.

[orleans]

64. that's okay--i didn't really care anyway. i was just teasing you. n/t

[midwest irish]

67. Read my answer again.

You may find a clue.

[midnight]

83. Good clue.. My mother and my Irish twin are nurses.... When my Irish twin was in nursing school

she told me she would never tag a toe, because none of her patients would die.... Bless her...

[midwest irish]

84. Im sorry

but I just died laughing because you wrote 'irish twin.' Good stuff.

[midnight]

87. It is good stuff... Right now my Irish twin and I are the same age.... We have lots of fun with this

until St. Patricks day eve when I become the older twin...

[rustydog]

53. Bingo!

That is what our church wants us to believe, this is the vessel the soul used during it's "earthly visit" and now the vessel is no longer needed.
That is the shell, not the person you loved so dearly...

[Warpy]

54. I'm an atheist.

I've just seen a lot of death.

[rustydog]

58. I'm agnostic, seen a lot of dying people too

[CTyankee]

59. I realized that immediately when my mother died. I knew she was no longer there.

it wasn't her. I kissed her forehead and left. I couldn't have watched the collection of her body from the hospital bed to be taken to the funeral home.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Religion

the soul animating the flesh is what makes the person, supposedly. John Smith is not John Smith's body. (and if you disregard the idea of a "soul", the personality and individuality that our brains impart goes away at death, as well.)

[Bad Thoughts]

41. Philosophy, too

"I think, therefore I am." The cognitive process is identified with the self, the body less so.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. The person is gone...

...the corpse isn't the person, it's just the container.
I remember when I looked at my dad right after he died, maybe a minute after, and I just burst out "That's not my dad!"
It wasn't. It was just what carried him around. My dad, he was gone.

[newfie11]

8. Same here when my dad died. Nt

[ChoppinBroccoli]

22. I've Noticed That Whenever I've Gone To An Open Casket Funeral

The body in the open casket never looks like the person I knew when they were alive. I'm not a religious person (well, to be honest, I have certain religious beliefs, but I have a healthy disdain for all forms of organized religion), but something is definitely different after the person is dead.

[elleng]

5. Good question. And,

my Dad and Mom still ARE; I don't say they 'were.'

Visiting their resting place shortly.

[gcomeau]

7. Pretty obvious...

Why dissociate the person from their body, by saying things like "A corpse was found" rather than "So-and-so was found dead" etc?

Because that former is accurate and the latter is not. The person no longer exists. The body does.

[SoCalDem]

19. And, many times the "news" of the deceased person gets out before

the family & friends are notified.

From a police/medical perspective, they are dealing with a body/corpse/remains, not a "person"..

[wickerwoman]

35. +1

They may not know who it is for some time after finding the corpse/body and even if they do, it may not be sensitive to release that information.

[orleans]

39. but that's not accurate either

the person most certainly does still exist
in the hearts and minds of those who loved them or cared about them
and their body was part of who they are

i think stating "a corpse was found" is an extremely cold way to phrase it
clinical
lacking warmth or compassion
harsh
unsympathetic to the bereaved

you wouldn't say to a grieving parent "where did the police find your son's corpse?"

[gcomeau]

45. No

Their memory exists. Their legacy exists. *They* do not. Don't confuse flowery poetic language with reality please.

(And even if that statement had been accurate, unless the cops had found the hearts and minds of the deceased loved ones it wouldn't have altered the accuracy of their statement would it?)

[orleans]

55. "*They* do not" is your opinion based on your assumptions & what you've been told

because it wasn't my aunt's "memory" or "legacy" that showed up a year after she passed, looking as solid and as normal as she had before, talking to me and giving me quite a scare one afternoon.

but i do agree that "their memory exists" because she knew who i was and called me by my name. so she definitely remembered me.

[gcomeau]

57. Hallucinations are nothing to take lightly.

I suggest you see someone about that. Sincerely.

[orleans]

63. don't be a jerk by implying i don't know what hallucinations are. open your mind (it'll do you good)

although i admit i also tend to be of the "if i can't see it then it doesn't exist" school of thought
meaning that if it hadn't happened to me i'd find it very hard to believe as well.

and in spite of what i was fortunate enough to see i still had the attitude of "when you're dead, you're dead" for years even though i had this incredible experience.

and as you suggest, i did see someone about it. i ran upstairs to my mom and grandmother, hysterical, and told them what had happened. and by doing that my aunt accomplished what she intended--letting them know we don't die.

i believe this is what is referred to as a visitation and most people, while open to this experience as children, tend to outgrow it by the time they are around nine or ten. i was about six years old.

maybe if you did a little reading on the subject you'd understand it a little more. just because you've never come across something in your own life doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[gcomeau]

66. I'm not being a jerk. That wasn't a joke.

And I wasn't implying anything I was stating it straight out.

[Duer 157099]

69. Cool story

thanks for sharing it

[Cleita]

9. That's the regular term used by coroners and law enforcement. n/t

[REP]

10. Distance

For some people, it's easier to think of what's lying in the coffin or contained in the crematorium container as not a person they knew and loved, but as a corpse or body.

No matter how old you are, or intellectually comfortable with the idea of death, or even if you've seen it a number of times, it can be disjointing to see someone you know dead.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Pending notification of family?

I know I for one don't want to hear my mom's name on the news as "XYZ found dead" without having a heads up about it.

[MineralMan]

12. Why not?

Body and corpse are essentially the same word. The person who inhabited either ha departed. The body is just a body. Meat, if you prefer.

[Auntie Bush]

13. That's always bothered me too. I remember

after JFK was killed they referred him as the body. It was bad enough losing him and watching his funeral...but to have the media refer to him as the body was distressing.
I never could have thought of my husband or son as a body. Does anyone refer to those 20 slain children as 20 bodies? No, we respect them and still refer to them as children.

[lonestarnot]

14. I dunno, what if they're a skeleton?

"Skeleton of we don't know was found..."

[Honeycombe8]

16. It makes sense to me. A corpse/body is different from "Jane Smith." Jane's essence is no longer ther

A body is treated differently from "Jane Smith."

I've heard it referred to as "Jane Smith's body," but usually they aren't certain who it is when they find a "body." It also helps to avoid using the term "deceased person."

It's used in the industry, I suppose.

[surrealAmerican]

17. Even without the religious baggage on this question ...

... so much of what we think of as a specific person is based on their behavior, that, once that behavior is gone, they no longer resemble who they were.


A pile of bones is not really Richard III, even though it's all that's left of him.

[Duer 157099]

18. Nope, not buying it, nor any of the many other attempts

If someone is in a coma, or paralized and in a coma, such that they have absolutely NO behavior whatsoever, we still call them by their name.

I think it shows tremendous disrespect to stop speaking about somebody as a person when they die, as though their body is some kind of thing to be feared and dissociated from who the person was.

I feel strongly about this, even though I understand what everyone up thread is saying and what they mean. I just disagree with it.

[SoCalDem]

20. Comatose people are still alive..they exist as a living person even if they cannot

communicate.. Once they have died, they are no longer a person..their body remains, but "they" are truly gone.

[loudsue]

29. Many many many people in a coma wake up. They aren't a body.

They are still in there. And when they wake up, a lot of the time they remember people who came and sat and spoke with them.

[LeftInTX]

33. In a coma, you have perfusion of tissues. It's very visible.

Perfusion of tissue can occur even if you are brain dead.
Once the heart stops all of that stops.

[CTyankee]

62. when she died my mother was no longer in the physical body. She entered another realm

She was in my heart and my memory. And I came to know what Joe Biden said about
losing a beloved person that there comes a time that their memory brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.

That is the way it should be, IMO. That way you go on, not just crumble, eventually, to dust.

[Zephie]

21. Philosophically, because that which made them a person is gone.

The things that made them a person, such as memories, thoughts, emotions... These are all things that a dead body has no access to. Being no longer living, they are not a "person" anymore. They have become something else, which is a corpse. It does not devalue who they were in life, just acknowledges that the person who they were is no longer in that vessel of skin and bone.

That's just my opinion though.

[Jennicut]

23. Maybe part of it is that in our culture

we have somewhat of a fear of death. If that is just a body over there then it has less impact then Jane Smith is over there dead.

[alarimer]

24. Because that's what it is.

Why should we sugarcoat anything?

[randome]

25. Because when someone dies, it's the same as if they never existed.

How's that for tough love?

You might say the people who knew him/her somehow means they aren't truly gone but those people will soon be gone, too.

In a million years, do you think anyone will know who Beethoven was?

[Taverner]

50. +1000

Cold and hard, but reality nonetheless

Thanks

[Recursion]

26. In the military we said "remains"

I don't think the corpse "is" the person, so I get why that usage is what it is.

[marshall]

27. Same reason a fetus is not a baby

We have specific cultural beliefs for what constitutes a person.

[Yo_Mama]

30. Because a person is alive and dead flesh is not

No one who has ever been around a corpse doesn't recognize that. It's not the person. It's what is materially left of the person.

We do disassociate our "selves" from our bodies. If you lost a hand due to accidental amputation, you wouldn't think that you were permanently separated from a piece of yourself. You would experience it as a loss - of a limb, of function, not as a division.

The whole concept of brain death recognizes that the flesh is not the person. One may be living, but not "there" as a person. So don't blame this on religion. Science thinks the same.

[Vinnie From Indy]

31. Because "kangaroo" and "turnip" were already taken!

Cheers!

[RedCappedBandit]

32. Dust to dust

Rotting remains are no more a person than the ice cream your mother ate while you were being manufactured.

[applegrove]

36. They also call people 'souls' if they are lost at sea.

[MADem]

37. Because their energy, the thing that made them them, is gone.

All that is left is the husk, the shell.

We are more than the sum of our parts, and the bit that could be called "more" is the person, the rest is just the parts (the corpse).

[orleans]

40. i absolutely get what you're saying

and i feel the same way
(see my post #39)

example
it may be a "corpse" to some people
but to me that was my mother
those were the arms that held me and comforted me
those were the lips that smiled every day
those were the hands that pushed back my hair or opened a door for me
all a part of what made her her
all a part of how i had come to know her, see her,
and everything about her is precious to me
from her outwardly appearance
to her sharp mind
to her quick wit
to the bobby pins on her dresser

[LongTomH]

85. The undertakers in my home town were always careful to refer to the deceased as 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.'

For a viewing: "There's someone here to see Mrs. Childress." (My grandmother) The sensitivity was appreciated.

[dipsydoodle]

42. Custom and practice.

.

[NNN0LHI]

43. Latin

Corpus Christi ("body of Christ&quot

[malaise]

44. I agree with you

It's still the same person - only dead.

[Taverner]

49. Question: 100 years later, is the dirt that's leftover from the corpse a person?

At what point does the corpse change from person to dirt?

I'm not trying to be difficult, but just trying to show why this detachment is needed

[malaise]

65. As long as people still visit that dirt I guess so

[BigDemVoter]

47. Interesting Question. . . .

I'm an RN, and we frequently have patients who expire. It's really quite striking the first time you have to clean up a dead body. What really hits you is that whatever person who was inhabiting the body is no longer there, leaving just an empty shell, hence, just a body.

[Duer 157099]

61. Can you tell the difference between a person who "temporarily" dies

and is resuscitated, a BHC, and a permanently dead person? I mean, not over hours, but over a few minutes. You can tell the difference? If so, you should write a paper about it because I'm sure the medical community would love to know about it.

[Taverner]

48. To maintain objectivity

When handing a corpse, the goal is not to celebrate a fallen human's life, but to find out why they died, how and when

If you call the corpse "Billy Smith" it adds emotion - you need detachment when performing an autopsy

[Paladin]

51. I Hope That Question Isn't Making You Lose Any Sleep. (nt)

[Dreamer Tatum]

56. Because the whole world is conspiring to make you religious

that's really what you're trying to say.

[Duer 157099]

60. No, as a matter of fact, that is not what I'm trying to say

I said what I'm trying to say. No more, no less.

[TheKentuckian]

68. Because luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

You could make a perfect clone of a loved one, full of life, and it would not be the same person but rather a new one in familiar flesh.

Identical twins are distinct beings despite every possible similarity. The being is more than the body.

How would you wrap your mind around the possibility of transferring one's mind to a different container be it a mechanical or a biological construction.
Will you lament a corpse when it's former owner is still there clothed in a new form with every bit of their personality, memories, whit, hopes, and dreams?

We are more than a collection of parts and more to being alive the working order of those parts.

[Duer 157099]

71. Immediately after? Yes, absolutely.

And I've been there, so it isn't hypothetical for me.

I didn't mean to make this a philosophical discussion about the soul and the duality of being.

My intent was that it strikes me as utterly disrespectful to one minute call that piece of flesh by name, and then the next, to call it a corpse. Even if the lifeforce has left it.

I also think this dissociation we do makes dead bodies so creepy to us. I don't mean a decomposing body, but a recently dead person, it's like we are suddenly afraid of that which we used to hug and enjoy being with. Now they are something to be feared and avoided, to be covered up and taken away with haste.

I'm not saying I like being around dead bodies LOL... gosh I hope that isn't how this is sounding. I'm just wondering aloud why it is this way for us, and whether it is healthy or what. That's all.

It all started when I read a book called "The Undead", where the author discusses at length the whole field of organ donation, and so-called "beating-heart cadavers", and the fine line between life and death and how that line is drawn.

[Duer 157099]

73. As I said, immediately after

Not at a funeral or wake. Not an embalmed body.

[Duer 157099]

78. I agree. And at that point

I *do* consider it a body, a corpse.

I must not be able to get my point across well. Oh well.

[Duer 157099]

80. Well, like in a hospital bed?

Just taken off of life support, that sort of thing. Hard to imagine?

[etherealtruth]

75. I have no issue with the "body/corpse" thing

My issue is with the euphemisms for death.

(I guess we all have little peeves about the use of language)

[Hugabear]

77. What if you don't know the identity, or next-of-kin hasn't been notified yet?

Many times when the body of a deceased person is found, the identity is not yet known, or the next-of-kin may not have yet been notified.

In these cases, how else should this be reported?

[Duer 157099]

81. Yeah, that is totally not what I'm talking about

so I understand the use in that context.

[NYC Liberal]

86. Because it is a body?

"Jane Doe" was not found; her body was.