There are so many motion surround death : What happens ? Where do we go ? sepulture vs cremation ? What ’s thegreenest way to go ? But today we ’d like to tackle the puzzling military issue of graveyard vs cemetery?Isthere a conflict ?
You may have hear that it all comes down to placement , with graveyards being specific to burial internet site attach to churches while memorial park could be just about anywhere . However , as a Snopes probe revealed , this distinction between the two categories is n’t true and , in reality , the literal difference come down to athirdoption and our older friend , etymology .
If we confer with the Cambridge Dictionary , graveyard is a synonym ofcemetery , and cemetery is a equivalent word ofgraveyard . The want of distinction between the two is reflected in their standardized use when referring to burial sites , and the experts agree that there ’s little to be sound out for severalize their usance .
The presence of a church no longer defines what makes a cemetery.Image credit: John Corry / Shutterstock.com
“ There is short or no difference between a memorial park and a cemetery , ” Professor David Sloane , who literally wrote the ledger onCemeteries In America History , toldSnopes . “ Either can be places next to a church building ( although most of those are call churchyards ) . ”
As for the etymology , cemetery is a more general term to describe entombment sites , but there ’s a fiddling more specificity to the history of cemeteries . The word comes from “ koimeterion , ” which is Greek for sleeping place . It come about in1485as a synonym for churchyard , but was later used to describe burying web site off of church soil when there was n’t room left to keep squeezing everybody into churchyard .
So , it could be argue that there was once a significant difference between churchyard and memorial park , as burying ground was adjust to typify a variant of a graveyard that was n’t so heavily hold by the church service . By line , the graveyard in the churchyard was one finally reserved for more religious individuals as quad parcelling became an issue .
If you want to bypass the drama all , why not just becomecompost ?
