Od Ozyrysa po Sleep Time. Współczesne tendencje w nazewnictwie polskich zakładów pogrzebowych
From Ozyrys to Sleep Time. The contemporary tendencies in naming funeral companies in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the contemporary names of funeral companies in Poland to discuss the language used while talking about death in present times. The analyse concentrates on the ‘meaningful’ names and proves that there is a distinct tendency to avoid talking about  death directly. The language is conventionalised and the way of it is referring to the ancient culture, using the names taken from mythology, the Bible, and also using the traditional language of the Church – Latin. Polish words used to give names to the companies are mostly either semantically neutral (for example the names of flowers) or related to the conventional attributes of mourning. All this makes style of talking about death solemn. Having appeared quite recently, English words, rarely used to name funeral companies, are an exception to it. This is probably because the English language, expansion of which is mainly connected with pop culture, is not burdened in Polish with the long tradition of culture and consequently – able to carry directness. The analysed material shows that death, euphemised in language, is still a strong taboo.

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