non-religious memorial "service"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Jun 13 00:34:01 UTC 2007


At 7:50 PM -0400 6/12/07, Mark Mandel wrote:
>Saturday evening I attended a gathering in memory of a friend. It was
>described as a "service" in the announcement as well as in the emails,
>although it had no religious components: the main event consisted of a
>number of people reminiscing about him.
>
>It could not have been more appropriate. But I do not remember previously
>hearing the word "service" applied to any non-religious meeting.
>
>Relevant definition from m-w.com:
>  a meeting for worship -- often used in plural <held evening services>
>
>... from OED Online:
>  A celebration of public worship.
>
I'm surprised you haven't encountered it, Mark.  (Less so that it's
not in the OED.)  It's been around for ages, especially in the
collocations "memorial/remembrance service", although "ceremony" is
also used.  We organized a "memorial service" of exactly the kind you
describe for my mother in 1975; she was passionately opposed to all
forms of organized religion and wouldn't have stood, even dead, for a
religious service.

LH

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