eulogy

eulogy. The term comes from Latin eulogium, from Greek eulogia, meaning “praise; good or fine language”, according to Online Etymology Dictionary. In the era of social media, which allows many people to pitch in to leave short messages on a topic, perhaps it is possible for the mourners of a deceased to leave collaborative eulogy on the web, for instance, on an online message board or a comment system. This would enable remembering the life of the deceased from various viewpoints. Such collaborative, or open, eulogy, on the other hand, might render unexpected or even undesirable effect, such as less-than-kind remarks being left on the message board. An example might go like this, “The late Mr. John Doe was not really that saintly person as many of you think he was. When he was the purchasing manager at the company, he often received bribes from the suppliers under the table.” While this kind of unfriendly revelation would add thrill to the funeral by exposing the reality of being an erring human being, not everyone wants to know every aspect of the life of the deceased. Also, it is somewhat unfair because we cannot give the very person in question a chance to refute the derogatory claim. Therefore the eulogy, not the factual revisitation. Gone is gone and, as the song “The Way We Were” goes, “We simply choose to forget. So it’s the laughter we will remember whenever we remember the way we were.”]]>