Yesterday I mentioned that Sue had visited a cemetery. I’ve touched on this topic before, and while it’s not something you absolutely must know, maybe you can impress your friends next time the subject comes up. Ok, actually the subject probably won’t just “come up” but maybe you can bring it up and impress everyone. Always a good conversation starter around the table is, “do you know the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard?” So off we go…..
I learned the answer to this age-old question when we were on vacation in Myrtle Beach with Terry and Al. We went on a Ghost Tour, and found it to not only be entertaining, but very educational as well.
Cemeteries and graveyards are both places we bury our dead, but (technically, at least) they’re not exactly the same. Growing up in Maysville, Oklahoma — when people died, they were buried in the cemetery. At least they were if they were buried in Maysville, because there were no graveyards. So, as unusual as it is for me… getting right to he point, a cemetery refers to a large burial ground, typically not associated with a church. A graveyard is typically smaller than a cemetery and is almost always associated with a church — and is usually part of the churchyard.
Years ago, the ritual and process of burial was totally in the hands of the church, and burying the dead was only allowed on the land(s) near the church building. This land around the church was called the churchyard. The part of the churchyard used for burial was called the graveyard. Over the years, as more and more people died, the graveyards were filling to capacity. Eventually, there was no more room for church burials and new places for burying people had to be found — these were called cemeteries.
The term graveyard obviously refers to a yard filled with graves. The word grave comes from old German, and means “to dig.” It’s interesting that the word cemetery comes from the old French word, cimetiere. That word means — you guessed it — graveyard. But the French word cimetiere originally came from the Greek word koimeterion. That word means “a sleeping place.”
While we’re on the subject, when I was going to school, depending on my class schedule, I sometimes worked the graveyard shift. I often wondered why it was called the graveyard shift. Actually, one of the men that I worked with on that late shift years ago, told me. It’s referred to as the graveyard shift because of the “silence” at that time of night — and — there are substantially more (serious) accidents during that shift, compared to other working hours.
So if you want to be technically correct when you visit, use the word cemetery when you’re visiting the larger burial grounds and graveyard in the burial grounds next to the church.
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