# The Word 'Cremains' - is it OK or do you hate it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531 "2011-09-16T17:11:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/41 "2011-09-19T12:02:57Z")
Hate it - it’s a piece of jargon we simply don’t need. Ashes or remains are pretty much all the words we need - if the conversation has a need to be more specific or technical, it still doesn’t need a single, stupid-sounding buzzword in it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/42 "2011-09-19T13:10:18Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Remains can refer to an un-cremated corpse as well as ashes. Cremains is more specific. How often is this disambiguation really necessary, though? I mean, for 99% of us, 99% of the time, we’re talking about a specific corpse, whose disposition is known to us. It’s not like we’re going to be talking to the crematorium, and they’ll say, “Your father’s remains are ready,” and we’ll be sitting there thinking, “Wait, does he mean a jar of ashes, or does he mean a whole corpse?” Personally, the word just feels highly artificial to me. I think it’s partly that I don’t pronounce the “re” in cremate the same way I pronounce it in “remains,” so the combination feels forced to me, and not the result of an organic evolution in the language. If there weren’t an industry pushing the terms use, I think it would drop out of the lexicon in pretty short order. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/43 "2011-09-19T15:34:06Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Personally, the word just feels highly artificial to me. I think it’s partly that I don’t pronounce the “re” in cremate the same way I pronounce it in “remains,” so the combination feels forced to me, and not the result of an organic evolution in the language. I don’t even like the term “remains” to refer to a body; if it’s a body, say so. “Remains” makes me think of bits and pieces left over after a violent death, or whatever chunks and goo is left after decomposition. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/44 "2011-09-19T15:39:47Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I don’t even like the term “remains” to refer to a body; if it’s a body, say so. “Remains” makes me think of bits and pieces left over after a violent death, or whatever chunks and goo is left after decomposition. “Remains” is more specific than body, though, as the former implies death. You can always used corpse or carcass, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/45 "2011-09-19T17:54:14Z")
You’re just not giving it a proper chance. It needs some support from pop culture, like the Merchant Ivory remake, _The Cremains of the Day_. Perhaps the news media could help. _A camera pans across the smouldering ruins of a middle-class neighborhood. A woman comforts her sobbing daughter in the foreground as men and women root through the ashes. Voiceover:_ “The 2011 Texas wildfires have reduced this picturesque cul-de-sac to ruins. Families half-heartedly pick through the cremains, hoping to find a salvageable memento.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/46 "2011-09-19T19:38:56Z")
Hate is too strong, but I don’t particularly like it, mainly because it sounds like something else, and that something is silly, whatever it is. I’m not against portmanteaus in general when dealing with funerals and the like, but that one is just too cutesy, and, yes, gives me a visceral reaction. At least, in the same way “moist” does. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/47 "2011-09-19T23:32:48Z")
I hate “remains”; “cremains” is even worse. Stupid euphemisms. What’s wrong with “body” and “ashes” anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/48 "2011-09-20T21:49:05Z")
I love jargon; it’s a fascinating part of language and it performs several important roles in communication. It’s especially useful for delineating membership and non-membership in certain classes and for fostering efficient and effective communication within those classes, and for obfuscating communication between classes. It’s therefore highly _inappropriate_ for formal situations that are not limited to members of one such class, and for making people who are not members of that class feel comfortable. The latter in particular–making people feel comfortable–is perhaps the most important service supposedly offered by the funeral industry, and the former–providing formal occasions for their clients and for the public–is the way most people expect them to perform that service. Using language like “cremains” around anyone who isn’t a member of their industry is therefore a sign of extreme ineptness and incompetence in their chosen profession, regardless of how anyone in particular feels about the sound of the word. Plus what everyone else said. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/49 "2011-09-20T21:59:11Z")
I don’t hate the word but have not as of yet needed to use it. In fact, I hate very few words but I am enjoying the complaints of it being a manufactured word. Every history has to start somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/50 "2011-09-21T00:59:00Z")
Sounds like what you get when you dry and then burn cranberries. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/51 "2011-09-21T01:14:31Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I don’t hate the word but have not as of yet needed to use it. In fact, I hate very few words but I am enjoying the complaints of it being a manufactured word. Every history has to start somewhere. Real words start in Ur. They exist in the collective unconscious before they are first uttered. Even successful portmanteaus have a hard-to-describe \*something \*to them that feels right about the sound. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/52 "2011-09-21T01:49:20Z")
Maybe someone should start a poll on which is worse, “cremains” or “blog.” ETA: Or “frenemy”! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/53 "2011-09-21T01:51:02Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Maybe someone should start a poll on which is worse, “cremains” or “blog.” But “blog” is really and truly useful. Before, we had to go around saying “bloated frog” which was really awkward. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/54 "2011-09-21T02:29:18Z")
> [@whiterabbit](#): > > I hate “remains”; “cremains” is even worse. Stupid euphemisms. What’s wrong with “body” and “ashes” anyway? Well, “body” and “ashes” are certainly within the informal, but for some situations “the deceased” and “remains” in the archaic formal is more appropriate in a professional and business sense… a good mortician would know which is appropriate for the local custom. I;ve always throught of “cremains” an industry term that was meant for interoffice use and expedience, that was exploited in a cynical marketing campaign. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/55 "2011-09-21T03:06:04Z")
Yeah, I guess “the deceased” isn’t terrible. But I still hate “remains.” I’m not big on euphemisms in general, especially around death. My father didn’t pass. He died. That sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/56 "2011-09-21T03:37:45Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Well, “body” and “ashes” are certainly within the informal, but for some situations “the deceased” and “remains” in the archaic formal is more appropriate in a professional and business sense… a good mortician would know which is appropriate for the local custom. I;ve always throught of “cremains” an industry term that was meant for interoffice use and expedience, that was exploited in a cynical marketing campaign. Cynical marketing campaign? Tell me more. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/57 "2011-09-23T03:05:54Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > What do breakfast pastries have to do with anything? HaHa. I’m laughing at you! You didn’t know that cromulent was the English Civil War guy! Teehee! Boy, some people are so dumb!But, I won’t say a thing! 😉 hh ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/58 "2011-09-23T03:26:08Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > My favorite is “biodegradable urn” which means “a glorified cardboard box that we’re going to try to sell to you for $200.” Fucking vultures. True. But, why did you quote their prices at about 1/6th the rate? hh ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/59 "2011-09-23T15:34:05Z")
I hate it viscerally. It’s just a nasty word that doesn’t sound natural. I’d rather just say, ‘‘remains.’’ ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531/60 "2011-09-23T16:04:57Z")
It sounds like made-up future slang. “Oi, chummer! Chip truth, these are real cremains from the '32 attack!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-cremains-is-it-ok-or-do-you-hate-it/596531.md?page=2)