Will Craig

I suppose ‘pushing daisies’ implies both hard work and flowers, like Eliza Doolittle selling her flowers in the London Slums. In the academic response, of course, ‘Pushing daisies’ is simply a colorful way of saying ‘dead.’ On how many occasions can you refer to a dead person that way? Outside of gangster movies, very few.  Expressions like this seem made for movies and comedy routines.  What springs to my mind at once is John Cleese’s spiel from the ‘Parrot Sketch’ – “He’s off the twig! He’s kicked the bucket! He’s pushin’ up daisies! He’s shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!” All colorful, evocative phrases, and a fairly accurate description, but totally inappropriate to say at funerals.