12 Cemetery Superstitions

[rlvaughn]

This is pretty interesting: 12 Cemetery Superstitions

Cemetery superstitions from the last century or two may have more influence over how you behave when it comes to family funerals and burials than you might realize.

Have you ever worn black to a funeral? Did you travel from a funeral home to the cemetery in an unbroken procession of cars? Have you ever sent flowers to the family of the deceased?

 

[SGO]

What is left and correct then?

Weeping, crying out, and lamentations by friends and families and the hired to do so.

Wrapping the body in strips of linen, applying spices and perfumes, and then grave cloths.

Burial.

Praise to God and praise about the deceased.

Musical dirges by singers with instrumental accompaniment.

Dead pan humor.

 

[JonC]

This is pretty interesting: 12 Cemetery Superstitions

Interesting.

 

[Alcott]

Is the one about parlor curtains the source of saying "It's curtains for____," or as used figuratively giving up in a hopeless situation?

 

[rlvaughn]

According to Grammarist.com (no idea how authoritative it is, it happens to be what I found):

The idiom it’s curtains for you was popularized in American films concerning gangsters in the 1920s and 1930s. The phrase became so well-known it is still often used when speaking hyperbolically, as in humorous works or cartoons. The idiom it’s curtains for you is taken from the fact that the final stage direction in many plays is simply the word “curtain”, meaning it is time to draw the curtain and end the play.

 

[SGO]

End of the play.

 

[RighteousnessTemperance&]

You mean Rod Serling didn't invent the idea of "Sin-Eaters?"

 

[graciecat]

I wonder who started these beliefs and what made them do so..