Linguistic Myths Surrounding Taphophobia

Howdy, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Alex speaking. I’m from Wellesley College.

Hi, Alex. How are you doing?

Good. How are you?

Doing great. Welcome to the program.

Hi. My friend and I had a very bizarre question.

We were talking about Victorian burial practices a few days ago, and it came up that there was this widespread fear that people would be buried alive.

And in order to sort of counteract that, they would be buried with bells attached to their fingers.

So they could ring the bells to alert people that they were, in fact, very alive.

And my friend Katie seemed to think an expression came out of that practice.

Okay, okay.

So are you reading about this in a class, Victorian Burial Practices?

No, it’s reading period here at Wellesley.

So you end up talking about everything except for academics.

Excellent.

And she’s a film major, so she always has crazy topics that she likes to bring up.

Oh, okay.

Okay, so you guys were reading about this morbid fear in Victorian times that people would be buried before they were really dead, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

And one of you thinks that a term that we use today came from that, and that term would be?

We don’t know.

I think she’s wrong.

You do?

So I could be right that she is wrong and that there is no expression that came out of this practice.

All right, well, put her on the horn. Let’s hear what she has to say for herself.

Hi, this is Katie.

Hi, Katie.

Hi, Katie. How are you doing?

I’m good. How are you guys?

Doing fine. So you’ve been reading all about safety coffins and escape coffins in the Victorian era, all those little contraptions that people were making so that they would not be buried before their time, or if they were buried before their time, they could be dug back up, right?

Yep, that’s what I do my recreational reading on.

So what’s the term that you think came out of that practice of burying bodies with bells attached to their fingers?

Well, I wasn’t sure. I did a little Googling and came up with graveyard watch.

And then I also got dead ringer and a few others.

Well, here’s what’s really interesting about this.

You write about the burial practices and all that.

There were these crazy contraptions, and there was this morbid fear at the time that people would be prematurely buried.

In fact, I think, did you read about Edgar Allan Poe’s story about this?

Oh, I think so, yeah.

Yeah, I think it was called a premature burial.

And so people were coming up with all these kind of Rube Goldberg contraptions, like you said, or like your friend said, putting bells on people’s fingers or having breathing tubes that go all the way up to the surface of the, you know, so that people could either, if you woke up, you could breathe and people could hear you down there.

And you know what? There was an interesting term for this.

It’s taphophobia.

Taphophobia.

Taphophobia.

T-A-P-H-O.

Phobia.

Epiphophobia comes from the Greek word for tomb.

Yeah.

And, in fact, it’s related to another English word that I’m sure you know.

The stuff that’s written upon a tomb is called your epitaph.

Aha.

But to get to the dead ringer and all that.

Okay.

All right.

Here’s where the balloon deflates then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s the…

Yeah.

The problem is that these stories are so great, but they have nothing to do with those etymologies.

About dead ringer. I know some people say, some people say, oh, graveyard shift must come from the person who had to sit in the graveyard and listen for the tinkling bells in case somebody woke up and was ringing a little bell attached to their finger by a string. But the truth is that we have etymologies for graveyard shift and dead ringer. And what’s the other one? Saved by the bell. Saved by the bell comes from prize fighting. You know, you get knocked down and the bell rings and then you don’t have to fight anymore.

There’s a book by Dave Wilton called Word Myths that has a pretty great, straightforward, easy-to-understand debunking of these.

Well, I’m a little sad I’m wrong. I have to buy her dinner now.

Just one dinner?

Yeah, just one dinner.

Oh, okay.

Oh, that’s not so bad.

Well, can you put Alex back on the line?

Katie, thank you for talking to us.

Keep on reading. Let us know what else you come up with, all right?

Well, thank you.

Thanks so much for answering our question.

Hey, Alex.

It was our pleasure.

Did you hear that?

Did you hear all that?

Or did you just see the look on Katie’s face?

I did see the look on her face, and I recognize it because she’s been wrong before.

All right, then.

Well, you guys are right about the whole weird cult of premature burial, but you’re also right that none of those expressions came from those practices.

So, Alex, what are you going to have her buy you for dinner?

I don’t know.

I also want her now, I think, to take care of my funeral arrangements, not just her.

There’s an idea.

Yeah.

Let’s see what we can do.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thanks for calling, Alex.

Thank you so much.

Have a great day.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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