Found in translation

I'm sure we all derive some interest from reading the tributes paid to people in the press after they've gone.

They do often need some interpretation. I think I might start compiling a guide to the terms used.

The phrase a free spirit, for instance, usually signals the passing of an individual without any sense of social or personal obligation, on whom no one could ever rely for anything.

Lived life to the full can often usefully be translated as rarely sober.

Thanks to John Medd (below) for identifying that close relation of the free spirit, the maverick. John's definition: someone who didn't give a flying f**k about anything or anybody.

And to Will Birch for he never married - the interpretation of which requires no great imaginative leap on the part of any reader.

Does anyone else have any contributions? It'll take me years to remember them all myself...