[WikiEN-l] a language issue

[Ray Saintonge]

Jay Litwyn wrote:
> "stevertigo" <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote 
>   
>> Listers,
>>
>> I've submitted a suggestion at
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Burials
>> with regard to how burials can be referenced in more encyclopedic language
>> than currently used.
>> Comments and criticism welcome.
>>     
> Klingons would approve. I do not know what you would link it to in the style 
> guide to promote the viewpoint that a dead body is only an empty shell. I do 
> not think you would get objections if you did a search for places where you 
> could insert "Isaac Asimov's [body] is interred at...". XXXX-1996. 
>
>   

The issue is a matter of much ado about nothing.  Should the Monty 
Python skit say that it was the parrot's body that was nailed to the 
perch and not the parrot itself?

In the interests of mutual respect an editor who wants to include the 
word "body" in his writings is perfectly at liberty to do so, and they 
should be reassured at the same time that those who omit that same word 
are not doing so to troll the fears of the taphephobics. 

A general adoption of a formula to always include the reference to a 
"body" (or a synonym thereto) strikes me as an excess of politically 
correct theology.

Ec