# Why am I now seeing the term "unalived" all over the place instead of the much shorter "killed" or "died"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 28, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-now-seeing-the-term-unalived-all-over-the-place-instead-of-the-much-shorter-killed-or-died/1028092 "2026-02-28T22:47:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 69
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-now-seeing-the-term-unalived-all-over-the-place-instead-of-the-much-shorter-killed-or-died/1028092/69 "2026-03-02T20:22:48Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > The term “unalived” makes me gag even when I’m just reading it. Each time I see or hear it, I automatically think of George Carlin’s bit about euphemisms from over 30 years ago, except it’s not being used as a joke. Neologisms definitely can be pretty grating. The only reason I don’t complain about them more than I do is that I know that a couple decades down the line my complaints will just sound gratuitously crotchety and curmudgeonly, because that term is just plain normal now. Remember twenty years ago when we had [Dopers starting threads to complain about the verbification of the word “action”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-action-an-item/380465)? Some of us may still mildly roll our eyes at it, but “to action” is absolutely standard usage now, including on these boards. Encounter a neologism enough times in enough routine contexts, and it just stops seeming annoying or ridiculous, relegating all our initial irritated complaints about how intrinsically annoying or ridiculous that stupid word is to the ash heap of linguistic evolution. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-now-seeing-the-term-unalived-all-over-the-place-instead-of-the-much-shorter-killed-or-died/1028092)._