Too many ways of saying this!

He is no more. She has breathed her last. He has closed his eyes. She has slept. He has left us. She has departed. His candle has blown out. She has gone west. He has eased her way out. She has transitioned out. He has expired. Her clock has stopped. He has kicked the bucket.

Or – He has joined the ancestors. The ancestors have called him. He has crossed the river. He has gone the way of all flesh. He has obeyed the ultimate call. His sun has set. He has gone where setting suns go.
Or – She has passed away. She has passed on. She has given up the ghost. She has gone to be in Abraham’s bosom. She has gone to be with the Lord. She has gone to heaven. She has rested from her labours. She has gone to glory. She has joined the angels. She has joined the saints. She has exited the church militant. She has joined the church triumphant.

Or – He has converted from an animate to an inanimate object….He has commenced disintegrating into cellular matter… He has rejoined the nitrogen cycle… 
But, crazy me, what was it that got me into this frame of mind? Ah, yes, it was when I recently read in one of our esteemed Ugandan English dailies about the sudden departure of one of us following a very short illness. To be specific, it was an eminent Uganda lady president of a leading humanitarian club. In his announcement of that very sad occurrence, a key member of the club said that the dear lady had “died”; and as if that was not bad enough, he added that she had “passed away”.
By comparison, I was truly surprised, upon the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, to hear BBC announcing that very fact by saying that a royal source had just communicated to them that Her Majesty had “died”!

And why was I so surprised? Because I expected to hear something much softer and gentler like Her Majesty has “breathed her last”, or has “passed on”, or even “has slept”.
All the same, why were my ears expecting such softer and gentler language? Simply because the English language is absolutely rich in that indirect or oblique form of communication known as ‘euphemism’ – which is the use of psychologically more bearable words when naming or describing something discomfortingly sordid or harsh or ugly or bleak, etc. 

What is of added interest for me in the various and far too many ways of communicating the sad reality of the demise of a loved (or unloved) one as copiously illustrated above, is that even with your eyes closed, you can tell quite accurately the skin colour, cultural tradition, religious orientation, intellectual perspective, or moral category of the person announcing the demise of a particular individual. 
For example, the person who tells you that somebody has kicked the bucket is mostly likely a guy or a rascal who grew up on a metaphorical ‘dung-heap’ and does not regard life as a precious gift.
For another example, the person who tells you that his loved one has gone to join the ancestors is most likely someone of African descent who believes in the notion of an afterlife of spirits that interact with the world of the living, and are themselves therefore not dead and gone but do still exist as ‘the living-dead’. 

For yet another example, the person who announces to you that someone he knows has just commenced upon the process of rejoining the nitrogen cycle may be an atheist, a pseudo-scientist, or an existentialist materialist.
And, for a final example, the individual who declares to you that his or her loved one has directly gone to glory or has gone straight into God’s presence is most likely a religious wishful thinker who does not know enough about the Second Coming.

Prof Timothy Wangusa is a poet and novelist.