Death is not the End

Chatting about funerals and coffins recently it occurred to me that even the death industry regularly use conjoinulations… but of course they do – there is a lot of money to be made from the dead - you can't waste time slacking about with extra syllables when there are so many people dying.

It's a very slick industry.

Apparently you can have your cremains turned into a diamond, a vase, a paperweight, get them shot into the sky as part of a firework display, get them dropped off in space, have them incorporated into an artificial reef, get them put in a locket for someone to dangle round their neck or have them mixed up with paint and get your portrait painted with them.

If cremation isn't your cup of tea, you can get coffins of bamboo that degrade quickly, coffins of cardboard that will only set you back like, £60, elaborate airbrush designed coffins, clear glass topped coffins, scented wood coffins, coffins made of crushed oyster shells (popular in Taiwan, back in the day)… the possibilities are, literally, endless.

So did you spot the conjoinulation?
That’s right, ‘cremains’…why bother keeping the ‘ted’ (as in cremated) when you can get most of the word in there anyway? More than enough to get the gist of what is being described.
Like I’ve always said – be conservative with your use of syllables.