Rose Cottage

Euphemisms and other coded messages

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

I’ve recently finished a wonderful book called Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn. One of her locations is an abandoned Scottish island where she spends the night in Rose Cottage. There was a dead cow outside which led to her comment that ‘Rose Cottage’ is a euphemism common in British hospitals. Nurses and doctors ask porters to take the recently deceased to ‘Rose Cottage’, rather than the mortuary. It’s done to avoid upsetting other patients, presumably those not suffering with a hearing problem?

I never knew this and it piqued my interest. What other phrases am I unaware of which are common code for something else?

Drunk gets 9 months in violin case

There are the accidental and neatly hidden double entendres well used by the ‘Carry On’ films in the sixties and seventies. I found a few which had escaped the attention of the newspaper’s editorial team and become headlines. Miners refuse to work after death. New obesity study looks for larger test group. And my personal favourite; children make nutritious snacks.

Hospital language

But that’s not quite right is it? Perhaps the medical profession has more than ‘Rose Cottage’ up their…