I’ve been looking but can’t find anything. I know the BBC suspended programming after he passed.
Tom Rhodes, according to the BBC.
I’ve now learned another difference between British English vs American. In American, a common euphemism for “died” is “passed away”, and only very rarely do I hear “passed” alone. Now it seems that “passed” might be more common in the UK.
Why do I mention this? Because I misunderstood the OP. I thought the question was, “Who won UK Master Chef after Prince Philip won the competition and declined [passed on accepting] the prize?”
I’ve been hearing/seeing it a lot for a very long time now, especially on the boards here. It’s not rare. (I happen to strongly dislike it.)
Other way round, in my experience.
Me too, sounds more American than British to me.
FWIW, in SE Louisiana, “passed away” is a common euphemism. “Passed” is known and understood in context, but it’s a decidedly minority usage and carries a connotation locally of extra formality.
I have to say, to me it sounds like the kind of thing a spiritualist would say. Not quite ‘gone to join the choir invisible’, but getting there
A now-gone message board used passed all the time. My guess is they thought it was more genteel. I hate it. I always wanted to scream “using a vague euphemism doesn’t make them less dead!”