In 1999, James Fergusson, writing in Secrets of the Press about the coded language of obituaries that he compared with the clues in a cryptic crossword, commented, "'He never married' closed an obituary with numbing finality" and asked "Did it, or did it not, mean that he was a hyperactive homosexual?" The ambiguity of the phrase has been commented on, however, by a number of sources. Sex between men in the United Kingdom was illegal until 1967, so few men were openly gay. The phrase "He never married" thus became a staple euphemism of obituary writers used to imply that the subject was homosexual. A similar phrase is " confirmed bachelor".Ĭonventional obituaries concluded with a summary of the members of the immediate family of the deceased, typically the spouse, if surviving, and children. Its use has been dated to the second half of the 20th century, and it may be found in coded and non-coded forms, such as when the subject never married but was not homosexual. " He never married" was a phrase used by British obituary writers as a euphemism for the deceased having been homosexual. Euphemism for homosexuality of the deceased
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