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Bella Silverstein's avatar

See Sarah Silverman's show "Post Mortem" on Netflix.

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Jay Heinrichs's avatar

Saw it! Seemed like a great celebration of life.

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Peter Moore's avatar

I'm intrigued by your invocation of the present perfect as a way to talk about death. Examples, please. Hey I'm a subscriber, and a mortal, so you owe me that.

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Jay Heinrichs's avatar

I have had people asking me that question, and I have offered a number of examples, including the last two clauses. The present perfect tense employs "have" or "has," followed by a past participle--a verb, that is. Imagine your cat caught a mouse. That happened in the past. Now try, "My cat has caught a mouse." That pulls the past into the present, implying that the poor rodent is in or near the cat's mouth. In terms of death, it brings the deceased into our lives. My parents have not died, they have merely ceased living.

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