mine is kicking the bucket (for english) or looking at the radishes from below (in german)
those make me chuckle sometimes
He bought the farm. The tragic backstory being that the man was farming on land he was still paying off a loan for and his life insurance pays for the farm for the widow (though that wasn’t even always the case).
Brown bread: an instance of cockney rhyming slang for “dead”. Difficult to use outside of the UK.
Mortally challenged: always good in a heavily moderated or corporate environment where every negative is somehow lexically spun into a positive, no matter how ludicrous.
One way ticket to Switzerland: hopefully a soon-to-be-outdated joke about taking advantage of their more liberal assisted dying laws.
The Dead Parrot Sketch has a few of my faves
Kicked off
Left the plane of existence
Shuffled off this mortal coil
Exited the building
Please for the love of everything sacred dont say unalive
“He’s wearing a wooden boiler suit” is a Dutch one I like.
“Beyond the veil”, because it sounds poetic.
Sometimes I like to tell people that my family has “two of those subterranean breed cats”
It doesn’t really translate well, but in Swedish “trilla av pinn” (slang/casual phrasing roughly meaning fallen off the branch/stick/bar).
I think it originates from farming circumstances where hens are sitting on bars in henhouses, laying eggs until they, well…
Kicked the bucket.
My dad had a good sense of humor. When he died, he left us his “Kicked the bucket list” with all of the information about accounts we needed to cancel, put in my mom’s name, etc. Having all that in one place made it a lot easier to work through all that shit while we we grieving.
[off topic]
Medical people I know tell me that when they have to actually give the family the news they don’t use euphemisms. No ‘they passed,’ or ‘they are in a better place.’ “They died.” You have to be blunt with really shocking news.
It’s hard, but yeah, it can be really, really hard for the person you’re conversing with to not believe the best option (even if zany) about whatever you say. So if you say someone ‘passed’ they will almost immediately chuckle thinking it’s about passing gas or stool, or that they’ve been moved to post-op for ‘they are in a better place.’
It also lets you squirt out of there quicker, which is a really, really bad way to think about it, but every time I’ve tried to soften the blow it ends up being more of a ‘grab the bacon while crying’ day rather than a ‘turn to family and hold onto them’ day.
I like “teats up” and “cark it”. 😄
Mine is from an old movie, The Last Starfighter. A human and an alien are discussing an attack on their base and the people killed in the attack.
Alex Rogan : You mean they’re dead?
Grig : [scoffs] Death is a primitive concept. I prefer to think of them as battling evil in another dimension.
“Virou estatística” “They are now statistics”.
“Ir de base” “Going to the base”. Reference to games where you respawn at a base.
“Ir de arrasta para cima” “Swiped up”. No ideia why that exists but it’s great
“Ir de submersível” “Went like a submersible” Reference to the billionaire submarine that imploded
All of the “ir de” ones can use “foi de” to say them in the past
Went to a farm up state
"it may be years
It may be hours
But sooner or later
We all push up flowers." - Florist, Grim Fandango
