There are just some words you pray you never have to hear strung together in a sentence.
Bad news comes in many forms and it's never easy to digest.
As much as I am a lover of language and words, I do recognize how words can hurt.
There of course is no way around it, bad news and horrors are inevitable.
Redditor stackofbones wanted to hear about the words that send shivers down people's spines. They asked:
"What’s the most terrifying sentence in the human language?"
Death. Death and disease. Anyway you discuss it or deliver it, those words can shatter you.
SAVE
Mad The Internet GIF by MOODMANGiphy"Save file corrupted." ~ gooniuswonfongo
"I just lost my 42 hour save of Persona 4 so I really feel this right now." ~ supremedalek925
get it together...
“You might want to get your legal affairs in order.” ~ RedditMayne
"I was told that twice in the span of 12 months. Both times, things went ok, but yeah... It's freaking terrifying." ~ thefreakychild
"I was given my biopsy results by telephone. They told me, 'You have Glioblastoma, get your affairs in order.'" ~ thelemonx
Tragedy
"There's been an accident." ~ TheDeadMonument
"Or, in my case, 'This is the police. Your wife has been admitted to the hospital. You need to come pick up your kids.' What they didn’t tell me until I got to the hospital was that she had died. In fact they didn’t tell me at all. It was my (14yo) daughter who told me." ~ kamuelak
Be Scared
"Rabies has gone airborne." ~ BudovicLagman
"When you show the first symptom, it's already too late and you're dead, the vaccine doesn't work then, the first symptoms are headaches, general weakness, fever... Just flu-like. And the incubation period ranges from a couple days to TWO YEARS so the outbreak might start and two years later, after basically every single person is infected, people start showing symptoms, and by the time we realize what's happening, we're dead." ~ Aloud87
flu shot GIFA little discomfort my butt. Who do these medical people think they're fooling with that one anymore?
Got Coins?
Giphy"Your card was declined." ~ syntaxz01
"And you don't have cash on you either." ~ -tweedledumb-
“We need to talk”
"We need to talk, let’s take a seat." ~ teddybaresall
"I made the mistake of telling my former boss, now retired and someone I’m still in touch with, that I hated when someone would call me into their office and say 'We need to talk' and it was never anything bad that I’d done. He made it a point to call me and troll me every time he needed me to come to his office, sometimes just to have a chat about life. It did end up desensitizing me to that, and I don’t know if it was an unintended side-effect of his trolling or if he was an evil genius." ~ Clusterf**kyShitshow
The Big C
"You got pancreatic cancer." ~ WillingnessSouthern4
"My brother calling me and asking if I had talked to Mom. 'You need to get over there.' Feb 4 2021. Worst day of my life so far finding out she has pancreatic cancer. Of all the effing cancers out there and the healthiest and most active parent between my husband and I. Here’s your PSA to not brush off any random little symptom you have." ~ PancakeAndGravy
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Critical Missing
"Where is the baby?" ~ Specific-noise123
"That's when everyone freezes and stares at each other and listen for any baby sounds. Thankfully most of the time when this is done to me they are jokes."
"The one time it wasn't was when we lost my baby brother (2 or 3 years old) at a Burlington. Everyone thought someone else was watching him. Could've been very bad. Only noticed he was gone when we heard someone describing his outfit on the intercom." ~ cln16
Support
greys anatomy doctor GIFGiphy"Doctor calling asking you to come back with someone close to you." ~ Dirkerks
"Generally because the diagnosis you're about to receive is very bad, and the doctor wants you to have a loved one there to support you/drive you home/remember important information you might be too overwhelmed to recall." ~ ArcadiaPlanitia
For You
"The good news is we're going to name a disease after you." ~ therickeffect1
"A friend told me the weirdest doctor appointment he had was when the doctor went to the far corner, called in another doc and said, 'Hey, come take a look at this.' Then they PULLED OUT A BOOK to start looking crap up."
"After the consultation with the other doc, he tells my friend, 'Nothing to worry about.' (Turned out my friend had an intersexed condition they had multiple surgeries for as a child back in the 70's. His test had come back showing him as a woman.)" ~ TheCaptainInevitable
And you. And you.
"Let's go around the room and all say a bit to introduce ourselves." ~ hanamaste
"Or worse, do that game where you need to memorize the name of everyone that goes before you 😱." ~ thegreatpotatogod
SING!!
“I brought my guitar...” ~ Tyeveras
"So anyway, here’s Wonderwall." ~ Stillwater215
"Still popular with many buskers 20 years on! So much so that it has replaced Here Comes the Sun as the go to busker song." ~ Tyeveras
Aww shucks
Season 6 Aww Shucks GIF by FriendsGiphy"I actually liked you for a long time." ~ Trip_koLng
MAYO!!
"Your parent calling you by your full name." ~ Nik-ki
"Reminds of a dream I had where I had a friend called mayo and we were playing in the street when his mum stepped out onto her porch and shouted 'Mayonnaise!' And he looked real scared." ~ Mr_Goat_1111
Go to Hulu
"That book you love is being adapted by Netflix." ~ Rik78
"I don't know, they're adapting Redwall, and I loved that as a kid. Kinda excited to see what they do with it. Really though books I love don't get adapted. Though I would love to see some madman try to adapt Atrocity Exhibition." ~ johnnysnoozes
Due Date
Pregnancy Test Im Pregnant GIF by Shay MitchellGiphy"I'm pregnant. Not to be confused with, 'I'm pregnant!'" ~ Ramen_Beef_Baby
Q & A
"'Can I ask you a question?' Don't ask me a question if you want to ask me a question. Just ask the question. Though, usually when this happens I know I am in trouble" ~ Mean_Map
"I do this sometimes because a friend of mine has an awful habit of just forgetting to reply, or outright ignoring messages for a long time, so when they reply I know I have them engaged." ~ ceo_of_dumbassery
Titus
"Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust, and with your blood and it I’ll make a paste, and of the paste a coffin I will rear, and make two pastries of your shameful heads, and bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam, like to the earth swallow her own increase. -William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus." ~ intercerebellar
POZ
"My covid test was positive.""
"I have a LOT of underlying conditions that could have made that deadly. Overweight, diabetes, mental health issues, 4 foot long blood clot, and asthma. By that metric I shouldn't have survived, but here I am. Most stressful runny nose of my life." ~ that_one_guy133
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter